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Kylian Mbappe: PSG Star Under Fire After Arrogantly Laughing at Private Jet Question

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Kylian Mbappe of Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) laughs at a question about private jets during the press conference ahead of their UEFA Champions League group H match against Juventus.

Paris Saint-Germain superstar Kylian Mbappe scored two goals in his team’s opening match of the 2022-23 UEFA Champions League season. The 2-1 victory over Italy’s Juventus still couldn’t get Mbappe off the hook for his actions at the pregame press conference, though.  

Ahead of the biggest matchup of UCL Matchday 1, Mbappe was sitting and answering questions from reporters beside his manager Christophe Galtier when a reporter asked a question about the French soccer team’s irresponsible use of private jets. 

The question drew a hearty laugh from Mbappe and a joke response from his coach. Now both are under fire from environmentalists, politicians, and ordinary fans for not taking a legitimate query about climate change seriously. 

Kylian Mbappe laughed off a legitimate question about private jets and climate change 

On Saturday, September 3, Kylian Mbappe and his PSG teammates, like Lionel Messi and Neymar, traveled to play Nantes. The 23-year-old Frenchman scored two goals in a 3-0 PSG win.  

After the win, Alain Krakovitch, Managing Director of the French train company SNCF, retweeted a video of PSG traveling to Nantes — a city 239 miles away from Paris — in a private jet. He questioned why a team would fly in an environmentally unfriendly private jet to a place that is only two hours or so by train and wrote, “I re-re-renew our offer” to create a luxury train to take PSG to its nearby matches. 

The tweet may have gone unnoticed by most, but a reporter did bring it up at the Champions League press conference attended by Mbappe and Christophe Galtier. 

That’s when things got ugly. 

A reporter asked (in French) about Krakovitch’s tweet and the issues surrounding flying private and the environment. Mbappe loudly burst out laughing at the question. And as bad as that reaction looked, Galtier’s response was possibly worse. 

“To be honest, this morning we have spoken with the company that organizes our trips to look into whether we can go by sand-yacht,” Galtier said, per Bloomberg

As you can imagine, this didn’t go over well with a large number of people. 

Criticism of the PSG pair

Kylian Mbappe of Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) laughs at a question about private jets during the press conference ahead of their UEFA Champions League group H match against Juventus.
Kylian Mbappe | Sebastian Frej/MB Media/Getty Images

According to the Washington Post, “the average person in the E.U. produces about 8.2 tons of emissions over the course of an entire year,” per a 2021 report. “A single private jet can emit 2 metric tons of CO2 in just an hour.”

This means that PSG’s flight to and from Nantes produced about half the CO2 emissions that the average European does in a year. 

Stats like this, combined with the flooding, drought, heat waves, and more around the world caused by climate change, made many respond negatively to Kylian Mbappe and Christophe Galtier’s glib reaction to the private jet question. 

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo retweeted a video of the response. She wrote (translation via Twitter), “No, but it’s not okay to answer stuff like that???? Wake up guys??? This is Paris.”

Elsewhere on social media, people of all stripes turned out to blast the player and his coach. Many pointed out what a bad look the laughter was for Mbappe, who makes €1 million per week on his current contract. 

Neither Paris Saint-Germain nor Mbappe or Galtier’s camps have responded to the backlash yet. 

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Tim Crean
Sports Editor

Tim Crean started writing about sports in 2016 and joined Sportscasting in 2021. He excels with his versatile coverage of the NFL and soccer landscape, as well as his expertise breaking down sports media, which stems from his many years downloading podcasts before they were even cool and countless hours spent listening to Mike & The Mad Dog and The Dan Patrick Show, among other programs. As a longtime self-professed sports junkie who even played DII lacrosse at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York, Tim loves reading about all the latest sports news every day and considers it a dream to write about sports professionally. He's a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan from Western New York who mistakenly thought, back in the early '90s, that his team would be in the Super Bowl every year. He started following European soccer — with a Manchester City focus — in the early 2000s after spending far too much time playing FIFA. When he's not enjoying a round of golf or coaching youth soccer and flag football, Tim likes reading the work of Bill Simmons, Tony Kornheiser, Chuck Klosterman, and Tom Wolfe.

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Author photo
Tim Crean Sports Editor

Tim Crean started writing about sports in 2016 and joined Sportscasting in 2021. He excels with his versatile coverage of the NFL and soccer landscape, as well as his expertise breaking down sports media, which stems from his many years downloading podcasts before they were even cool and countless hours spent listening to Mike & The Mad Dog and The Dan Patrick Show, among other programs. As a longtime self-professed sports junkie who even played DII lacrosse at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York, Tim loves reading about all the latest sports news every day and considers it a dream to write about sports professionally. He's a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan from Western New York who mistakenly thought, back in the early '90s, that his team would be in the Super Bowl every year. He started following European soccer — with a Manchester City focus — in the early 2000s after spending far too much time playing FIFA. When he's not enjoying a round of golf or coaching youth soccer and flag football, Tim likes reading the work of Bill Simmons, Tony Kornheiser, Chuck Klosterman, and Tom Wolfe.

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