Last week, to a soundtrack of Michael Jackson’s Heal The World, Kylian Mbappé walked on to a stage in a Paris hotel to unveil his new charity called Inspired by KM. Cheesy? If you insist, but even the most cynical onlooker would have found it hard to scoff at most of what followed. Mbappé, at the age of 21, is the football superstar the world needs right now.
On the pitch he showcases a rare amalgam of qualities: extraordinary speed, extreme technical prowess, and preternatural awareness. Off the pitch he stands out for his simple decency despite the razzmatazz that could consume him. His father, Wilfrid, has a nice line about him. “Of course he’s normal; most people are.”
That gets to the heart of it: as a footballer Mbappé knows he is better than nearly everybody else; as a person he does not consider himself to be more special than anyone. He has exceptional wealth – with an annual income estimated at around £20m – but he does not keep it all for himself.
In football terms, the moment Mbappé made the jump from thrilling talent to bona fide great can be pinpointed to France’s second‑round victory over Argentina at the 2018 World Cup, when he blasted through Lionel Messi & co to drive France to a 4-3 win. Les Bleus went on to win the tournament and then Mbappé did something else remarkable, donating all his match fees and bonuses – around £275,000 – to charity. Before the tournament England’s players took the collective decision to do the same; Mbappé’s was a solo initiative.
So there was nothing surprising about Mbappé launching his own charity. And yet, it was still amazing to see how natural he made it all seem and how darn likeable this young man who has it all is. Inspired by KM – or, to be precise, by his mother, Fayza Lamari, who came up with the idea – has committed to helping 98 children from Paris to fulfil their dreams. What does that mean? Whatever they want it to mean, as Mbappé says he will help the children, now aged between nine and 14, to pursue whatever path they choose. “We will support them until their working lives begin,” he says.
The kids and their parents attended the presentation. “I would like to go into medicine,” says one boy. “A career in singing would be amazing,” ventures the girl beside him. “I would like to become the Kylian Mbappé of maths,” says a boy of about 10. Many others say they did not yet know what they would like to do when they grow up. Which is fine, because over the next few years the charity will expose them to all kinds of activities, from language lessons and art and craft classes to sports events and foreign trips.
Mbappé explains he made a point of picking kids from a variety of social, ethnic and economic backgrounds. “It is important for everyone to mingle with people they might not otherwise meet,” he says. Before being accepted on the program the children must sign a charter pledging, among other things, “to stay humble ... to take responsibility for my actions … to take the time to listen to others … to manage my emotions, problems, and conflicts with dialogue and without resorting to violence.”
In front of an audience of about 300 people, Mbappé introduces the people who will help him run the charity, including his parents, two aunts and the headmaster of the school he went to. He stresses that he will be very much involved. “I didn’t set this up to delegate, I am going to invest myself in this to the maximum,” he says. He seems surprised when someone asks him why he feels a need to give back to society. “Because society has given to me,” he says, as if the answer is perfectly obvious.
Is he trying to improve the image of footballers? “Maybe we can change people’s preconceptions but we can’t control what people think,” he says. “I’m just trying to give a hand to children and make them smile.”
Mbappé’s lawyer, Delphine Verheyden, helps to arrange all his commercial and philanthropic activities. She has said the player has received several sponsorship offers every day since the 2018 World Cup win. Mbappé says he does not go for the most lucrative. “Of course it’s about business but it also has to be about people,” he says. “Values are important.”
That attitude makes him even more attractive to corporations. In addition to paying him well for his endorsements, several of them are contributing financially to his charity and sent representatives to speak at the presentation. The woman from Good Goût, who will provide healthy cooking lessons to the 98 kids, spoke well and when she reeled off some grim facts – “in France today, eight‑year-old children have, on average, already eaten as much sugar as their grandparents did in their entire lives”, Mbappé looks dismayed, genuinely.
Then the man from Hublot said his company was delighted to back the project, adding something about Mbappé’s combination of technical mastery and good conscience making him just the chap to promote quality timepieces. And the male cosmetics company executive who flew in from Japan suggested that getting men to look after their skin is an important step towards getting them to take care of the planet. Yes, the lads in suits were really stretching themselves.
Mbappé, meanwhile, came across as a natural. Maybe he is a world‑class actor as well as a world‑class footballer. But it is nice to believe that the player who could dominate football for the next decade really is just a good guy. Pity he plays for Paris Saint-Germain.
(The Guardian)
