In the aftermath of Paris Saint-Germain offering Kylian Mbappe a crazy deal to stay at the club, we’re looking at five of the strangest contract clauses in football history.
PSG reportedly offered to make the player the ‘owner of the project’ in a last-ditch effort to keep the Frenchman at the club.
The forward has set the footballing world alight this season. He has bagged 25 goals in his 34 league appearances. In addition, he has established himself as the club’s leading frontman, despite the presence of Lionel Messi and Neymar.
And it seems the club recognises that. According to El Chiringuito TV, they offered him a contract which would allow him to be the ‘owner of the project’.
The contract means he would have a vital say on any changes to the management or potential transfers. He could select his own teammates and even pick a head coach to sing to his tune. That would give him unheard-of power.
Of course, he’d also make a ludicrous amount of money. Mbappe would reportedly pocket £4 million a month if he accepts, with a signing bonus of £100 million.
As per Sky Sports, he has agreed to a new contract to remain with the French giants. However, the exact terms of any deal remain unclear. But regardless, this has inspired us to take a look at some of the other football players who’ve had bizarre clauses put in their contract.
Read: Erling Haaland Man City clause raises questions over long term future
5) Dennis Bergkamp
The Dutch sensation could walk out in front of thousands of fans and hit the back of the net like a duck taking to water. However, if you put him on a plane, he would beg the pilot to keep it grounded. To put it simply, Bergkamp was terrified, and it wasn’t a fear he wanted to overcome.
One of the clauses in his contract prevented him from flying to football games, which cost him £100,000 in pay.
He instead decided to travel by train wherever possible, and consequently missed many European fixtures.
4) Spencer Prior
People do weird things to make their dreams a reality. But the defender took this a step further than most when he agreed to eat a sheep’s testicle. His Cardiff City boss, Sam Hamman, refused to sign him unless he tried the delicacy.
Prior admitted: “It must be the strangest contract in the history of football. But I’ll try anything once.”
He sprinkled the testicle with a pinch of salt before getting stuck into it. Later he found out that he had thankfully only indulged in slow-cooked chicken.
3) Ronaldinho
You can take the boy out of the party, but you can’t take the party out of the boy, as Flamengo found out. After leaving AC Milan, the trickster decided going wild was a necessary part of his lifestyle.
Therefore, he had a ‘nightclub clause’ placed in his contract that he could hit the town twice a week with no repercussions.
2) Giuseppe Reina
This football contract clause is perhaps as funny as it is downright bizarre.
When Giuseppe Reina signed for German side Arminia Bielefeld in 1996, he requested that the club build him a new house for every season of his contract. The forward spent three years with the side, netting 22 goals in 96 appearances.
However, he never specified the cost or size of the house. The club, therefore, built him a house made entirely out of LEGO blocks each season.
1) Neil Ruddock
It’s fair to say that Razor enjoyed a good old Full English back in the day. But Crystal Palace made it their mission to cut that out.
Their ex-chairman Simon Jordan wrote in his autobiography: “On approaching West Ham, I discovered he was a free transfer, although he did have a weighty salary — which was not the only weighty thing about him.
“Harry Redknapp, the West Ham manager at the time, told me to put in a weight clause.
“So I decided to put a 10 per cent penalty on the contract we were proposing to offer him if he was over the recommended weight of 99.8kg which, by the way, was still frigging huge.”