Kylian Mbappé is a victim of the PSG honeypot and his talents are being wasted

E urope, several years from now. A thin light strains through the cracked and grimy window. The air is gritty with smoke. The man wakes. He is stiff, cold, tired, afraid. Outside is devastation, the city in ruins. Everyone has fled. Even the sirens sound more distant now. With a trembling hand, the man withdraws his phone from his pocket. He must be sparing with the battery, he knows, but awkwardly he turns it on.

Perhaps this morning there will be signal. Perhaps this morning he will find out how far the crisis extends. The screen flickers. He hears the low ping before he sees the bars. A miracle. He has connection. There is a news alert. His fingers tremble as he taps. For a moment his weary eye can not quite take in the headline he sees. But then it shudders into focus: “Mbappé,” it says, “threatens to quit PSG.” Some things, at least, never change.

What, really, did Paris Saint‑Germain think was going to happen when Kylian Mbappé got to the final year of his contract? Did they really believe a player who two years ago in effect made them buy him for a second time despite never having left was going to toddle along to Nasser al-Khelaifi’s office and cheerily sign an extension? “Cheers, Nass, whatever you think. Franchement, I love it so much I’d play for free. Merci.”

Lionel Messi has gone. Neymar seems to be on his way, flirting with all the usual money-spouts, but particularly the Saudi club Al-Hilal and Chelsea. Mbappé is the last remaining star. Unless PSG have had some improbable epiphany and realised at last that egotistical monsters may improve the guest list but are pretty much useless when to comes to winning things that matter, he is in a position of immense power.

Of course he is going to use it: one