According to the bloke yelling at the top of my street, he’s a clown paid 1,000 times the minimum wage to chase a ball.

According to my balance sheet, he’s a fixed asset.

According to URSSAF, the French agency that collects social-security contributions, he’s an employee.

So we’re dealing with an employee who is also an asset (an intangible asset, for the purists).

The problem is that this asset looks more like a bond than a genuine investment. Because a club never actually buys a player. It pays another club to release him from his contract, so that it can offer him a new one.

Back to my example.

Once I’ve signed Mbappé and Real Madrid want him, there are 2 options

• Wait for the 5-year contract to run out: Mbappé has served his time and does as he pleases
• Pay me to break the contract so Mbappé can sign a new one with them

So you’d expect that, like a bond, a player’s market value would fall over time: but it doesn’t. In reality the market is built around contracts long enough never to be served out in full.

Imagine that, after paying €145M for Mbappé and paying him €115M in wages (bonuses not included), his contract simply ends. All I can do is hope his time at the club earned me a fortune… And this has actually happened.