Kylian Mbappé

8 April 2022 - 10:30 AM

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Alamy

Mbappé’s refusal to honour national team sponsorship commitments could throw FFF into crisis ahead of World Cup

  • At the end of March, French international striker Kylian Mbappé failed to show up for a photo shoot with various sponsors of the French national team.
  • Mbappé and his lawyer are now locked in a dispute with the FFF, with the lawyer claiming the agreement between the FFF and national team players makes it impossible to control their image.
  • Why it matters: Players are much more aware these days about the type of products they want to promote, so the Mbappé conflict will probably be just the first of many similar cases.
  • The perspective: The FFF seems to have been caught napping with an outdated image rights strategy that doesn’t take the complexity of the issue into account.

With the 2022 FIFA World Cup only eight months away, a potential image rights crisis is currently developing at La Clairefontaine, the headquarters of the French Football Federation (FFF), which could lead to player unrest and internal squabbles at the federation as “Les Bleus” head into the final phase of preparation to defend their title in Qatar.

At the heart of the crisis is Kylian Mbappé, who at the age of 19 was already

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