Can Ligue 1 recover from the loss of Kylian Mbappe?

Kylian Mbappe was the biggest player in French football from 2017 until 2024, when he moved to Real Madrid.

His transfer out of the competition could have happened sooner, and we all expected him to make that move in the summer of 2022.

However, PSG convinced or forced him to sign an extension, which kept him in Ligue 1 for two more seasons.

It was not just PSG that benefited from him remaining in the French top flight for a few more seasons.

Ligue 1 has lost its star power and PSG is the only club that imports the best players on the globe into the country.

Over the years, they have splashed the cash to sign the likes of Edison Cavani, Neymar and Lionel Messi, but none of these stars made the impact Mbappe made at the club and league.

The Frenchman is a sensation. In 2020, he almost won the Champions League for the Parisians before losing the final to Bayern Munich.

He broke all kinds of Ligue 1 and PSG records before he left them as a free agent this term and still has some legal battles to fight with his former employers.

Sadly, PSG is withholding some of Mbappe’s wages, which shows they did not appreciate his years of dedication to them as a player.

The Parisians are struggling without him, especially in Europe, and Ligue 1 has lost a lot of prestige following Mbappe's departure.

We now understand why everyone bought more Ligue 1 tickets when he played for the biggest club in the country.

PSG would be more bothered about the clubs that can now catch them at the top of the log because most teams would no longer fear them as much as they did when Mbappe was in the group.

How important was Mbappe to Ligue 1?

Mbappe broke onto the scene in the 2016/2017 season as a baby-faced youngster for the AS Monaco team that won Ligue 1 that season and impressed in the Champions League.

He stood out in matches against Manchester City in Europe, and PSG swooped to sign him on loan at the end of that term.

In Paris, he began to reach world-class status, even though he was a teammate with Neymar, who arrived the same summer.

Mbappe is clearly a talented boy and the likes of Barcelona and Real Madrid felt they had missed out on a huge talent when he won the World Cup with France in 2018.

The youngster came alive during the knockout rounds of that competition, and after that win, he became the poster boy for Ligue 1.

Before that time, the French top flight had lost its competitiveness, and it did not have the star power to make football fans follow the competition.

PSG had named Carlo Ancelotti their manager in the past and signed players like Cavani and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but none of these arrivals transformed Ligue 1 as Mbappe did.

The younger generation of football fans could relate to the Frenchman as he began his career, and he showedan  unstoppable rise to stardom before leaving.

Ligue 1 had not groomed such a top player before he arrived, so they wished he could remain in Paris for the rest of his career.

TV rights deal before and after Mbappe

One area that felt Mbappe's impact the most is the TV rights deal that Ligue 1 brokered while he played in the competition.

With Mbappe in the league, fans wanted to watch French football, especially the matches he would be involved in.

This gave the French Football Federation the chance to negotiate a good deal, and for the 2016 to 2020 period, they brokered a record-breaking 726.5 million euros per season deal with Canal+ and BeIN Sports.

Ligue 1 thought the deal should have been better, but it was a great deal to take, and at that moment, they were making good progress as competitors.

Mbappe’s star power continued to improve the French league's image as his career developed, and his personal image became a global brand.

When COVID-19 struck in 2020, most top flights could not make a good profit from selling their TV rights, and Ligue 1 was also hit hard.

The French top flight could only make a deal worth €620 million per season for the 2020/2021 campaign, and this could have been worse if the competition had not had Mbappe as its star man.

His decision to leave PSG this summer affected the league’s chances of a good TV rights deal, as no company wanted to take the deal until late in the summer.

Eventually, Ligue 1 settled for just €500m per season after holding out for €1bn per term and never getting an offer close to that amount.

This is a clear sign that a Mbappe-less Ligue 1 is less valuable than when the Frenchman competed for PSG in France.

Ligue 1 needs a radical new strategy. 

Some clubs are happy with the departure of Mbappe because it gives the likes of Olympique Marseille a chance to win the league, but it is not good news to the league as a whole.

The competition has now lost its biggest stars, and it will struggle to achieve success by following the same strategies as the other European leagues.

PSG has become a model of self-sustainability, with its TV rights share forming just 8% of its revenue stream per season.

They have built a brand that makes more money from sponsorship and other agreements, and Ligue 1 needs more clubs to adopt that approach.

If clubs can make money elsewhere, they would have the funds to develop teams that will compete for the top European honours, and that would bring more money home from TV rights.

Maintaining the status quo as is the case now means Ligue 1 risks being pushed out of the top five leagues in Europe by one of the Portuguese top flight or the Dutch Eredivisie.

Conclusion

Losing Kylian Mbappe would be a big blow to any competition, but Ligue 1 has to adapt and get back to life without the Frenchman.

This is the biggest test that its leaders have faced since taking the role, and they must make the right decisions to keep the league competitive and popular.