Mbappe and PSG: The $800M battle over unpaid wages and moral harassment
Paris (AP): The legal dispute between Paris Saint-Germain and Kylian Mbappe escalated on Monday with both sides making colossal financial demands.
The France star forward and his former club are at odds over alleged unpaid wages, and the financial dispute was examined by an industrial court.
Mbappé, who did not attend the hearing, previously claimed he was owed 55 million euros ($63 million) by the reigning European champion. He now demands more than 260 million euros from the club, arguing that PSG owes him that money because his fixed-term contract should be reclassified as a permanent one. Such a reclassification would trigger compensation for unfair dismissal, unpaid wages, bonuses, and severance.
He also claims damages for moral harassment, undeclared work, and breaches of PSG's duty of good faith and safety toward him.
“Kylian Mbappé is not asking for anything beyond what the law provides; he is simply seeking the enforcement of his legal rights, as any employee would,” the player's advisers said in a statement.
PSG, meanwhile, is seeking a total of 440 million euros from the striker including 180 million euros for a “loss of opportunity” to complete his transfer since he left as a free agent after he declined a 300 million euros offer from Saudi club Al-Hilal in July 2023.
PSG said in a statement it also wants compensation for breaches of good faith in both negotiations and contract performance, as well as reputational and image damage.
A decision from the court is expected next month.
A lingering disputeMbappé joined Real Madrid during the 2024 summer on a free transfer after scoring a club-record 256 goals in seven years at PSG, which won the Champions League without him this year.
PSG argued that when Mbappé was sidelined before the 2023-24 season — following his decision not to extend his contract — there was a verbal agreement with him opting to relinquish bonuses in order to return to the team.
“Before the court, the club presented evidence showing that the player acted disloyally by concealing for nearly eleven months, between July 2022 and June 2023, his decision not to extend his contract, thereby depriving the club of any possibility of arranging a transfer,” PSG said in a statement.
“The player then challenged an agreement concluded with the club in August 2023, which provided for a reduction in salary should he decide to leave on a free transfer, in order to preserve the club's financial stability following the exceptional investment made.”
Mbappés camp replied that PSG never produced any evidence of an agreement to waive these payments.
Harassment accusationsWhen he accused PSG of moral harassment, Mbappé denounced the lofting' he claimed to have been subjected to at the club. The word lofting is used in France to describe a practice that involves isolating a player from the main squad for sporting, administrative, or disciplinary reasons.
His relationship with PSG ended amid deep tensions, as the club felt let down after offering him the most lucrative contract in club history when he signed a new deal in 2022.
Mbappé stunned PSG a year later by informing the club he would not take the option for an extra year. With his contract effectively into its final year, it put PSG in the position of needing to sell Mbappé to avoid losing him for nothing when the contract expired. Mbappé had joined PSG from Monaco for 180 million euros in 2017.
After telling the club he would not extend, Mbappé was left off a preseason tour to Japan and South Korea and forced to train with fringe players. PSG said it would rather sell him than let the player leave for free in 2024, but he rejected a move to Al-Hilal.
PSG left Mbappé out of the opening league game of that season but he soon returned to the lineup following talks.
PSG denied accusations of harassment or pressure, stating that Mbappé took part in more than 94% of the official matches of the 2023-24 season “with all sporting decisions made by a coach who is now a Champions League winner — and that he always worked in conditions compliant with the Professional Football Charter.”
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President Trump wants to impose 15% tariff, up from 10% he announced after Supreme Court decision
Washington (AP): President Donald Trump said Saturday that he was raising the global tariff he wants to impose to 15 per cent, up from 10 per cent he had announced a day earlier.
Trump said in a social media post on that he was making the decision “Based on a thorough, detailed, and complete review of the ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision on Tariffs issued yesterday,” by the US Supreme Court.
After the court ruled he didn't have the emergency power to impose many sweeping tariffs, Trump signed an executive order on Friday night that enabled him to bypass Congress and impose a 10 per cent tax on imports from around the world. The catch is that those tariffs would be limited to just 150 days, unless they are extended legislatively.
Trump's post significantly ratcheting up a global tax on imports to the US yet again was the latest sign that despite the court's check, the Republican president was intent on continuing to wield in an unpredictable manner his favourite tool to for the economy and to apply global pressure. Trump's shifting announcements over the last year that he was raising and sometimes lowering tariffs with little notice jolted markets and rattled nations.
Saturday's announcement seemed to a be a sign that Trump intends to use the temporary global tariffs to continue to flex.
“During the next short number of months, the Trump Administration will determine and issue the new and legally permissible Tariffs, which will continue our extraordinarily successful process of Making America Great Again,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social media network.
Under the order Trump signed Friday night, the 10 per cent tariff was scheduled to take effect starting February 24. The White House did not immediately respond to a message inquiring when the president would sign an updated order.
In addition to the temporary tariffs that Trump wants to set at 15 per cent, the president said Friday that he was also pursuing tariffs through other sections of federal law which require an investigation by the Commerce Department.
Trump made an unusually personal attack on the Supreme Court judges who ruled against him in a 6-3 vote, including two of those he appointed during his first term, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. Trump, at a news conference on Friday, said of the two justices: “I think it's an embarrassment to their families."
He was still seething Friday night, posting on social media complaining about Gorsuch, Coney Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts, who ruled with the majority and wrote the majority opinion. On Saturday morning, Trump issued another post declaring that his “new hero” was Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote a 63-page dissent. He also praised Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, who were in the minority, and said of the three dissenting justices: "There is no doubt in anyone's mind that they want to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
