The Pogblem

Where to start. I thought I had my opinion of Paul Pogba figured out but having just started to watch his latest publicity stunt unfold in his new documentary ‘The Pogmentary’ (yet another branding exercise), I’m faced with yet more revelations, thoughts and opinions.

First things first before I try to reconcile. Paul Pogba is a great footballing talent and no matter how I’ve slated him to my mates, Mrs Wife (who doesn’t care) and my Dad, I’ve always remained firm on this. It’s the balance of the man, brand, icon, celebrity…whatever he identifies as, which has always frustrated me. All famous footballers have these facets to them; Look no further than Cristiano Ronaldo or David Beckham, with the latter once having a pun ‘brand it like Beckham’, placed against him after the film ‘bend it like Beckham’. However, unlike Ronaldo and Beckham (who were in my opinion always footballers first and celebrities second), who always delivered once across that white line, Pogba is more of a blur and it’s unclear where his priorities lie; is he more preoccupied with his footballing abilities or his brand reach? Perhaps the only other current footballer in this bracket (or nearby) is Neymar who fans are equally divided on and for all their talents, they’ll unfortunately never be remembered as ‘greats’, as their mentality isn’t where it needs to be to succeed in the footballing world.

Perhaps the best place to start with Pogba is the moment he left United in the first place, which was due to his self sense of grandeur at the tender age of 19, when he was already getting ahead of himself on the commercial front with Fergie quick to offload him to Juventus for next to nothing. There’s no doubt Pogba was a highlight of the United youth academy but so was Scholes, Beckham, Butt, Rashford to name a few. However, it’s the mentality of the player less the ability, which Fergie always looked at. You’ll be given a chance in the first team at United, it’s part of the clubs culture but you have to wait for that chance and earn it first. Should it work out, as with all top flight footballers, money (and large sums of it) will come naturally as a bi-product. It is mentality, which got Gary Neville into the United first team who ultimately became a mainstay for both Club and Country. Nev didn’t have the natural ability of Scholes or Becks but he had the mentality to get a place in that team, driven out of sheer will. Fergie was always this way with his players. You could be the best player on the team but if you start becoming to noisy, distracted or victim of a falling out with Fergie himself then you’re off - Kanchelskis, Beckham, van Nistelrooy, Ince all left United in their prime. Rooney would have definitely followed in 2010 but for finding himself in a very unique position when the Glazer ownership had for the first time started to show its true colours when reinvestment into the team failed to occur post the departures of Ronaldo and Tevez in 2009, but that’s for another day.

However, the origins of Pogba’s sense of self grandeur is not a blame you can lay solely at his door or maybe even his door at all. After watching the documentary, it’s clear Pogba’s team and primarily his agent Raiola and lawyer, have created a ‘product’, which is there to be marketed to the highest bidder for maximum profits. Pogba's lawyer talks of haircuts, emojis, pogmojis, mugs, as something ‘they’ created and it’s clear this is what ‘Pogba’ is to these people; A brand. It’s also clear Paul himself isn’t aware of this. He, like many celebrities have people in their ear telling them how great they are and how undervalued they are and that they should be paid more and if someone is in your ear constantly then you’re going to start believing this…like a form of brainwashing or gaslighting. Now there’s no doubting that Pogba, as a product has been a commercial success and that’s a large part of the reason United brought him back (if not the sole reason in 2016 and haven’t let him go since), but the fact no other clubs have ever come in for Pogba tells you something.

Raiola claims in the documentary that 4 clubs were in for Pogba in the summer of 2021, although he avoided clarifying who they were when asked, giving some fluffy response about not talking about the girls you didn’t date. Side note, I do loathe the constant ‘soft talking’ of Raiola throughout this documentary; He’d make a great MP, as he never gives direct answers if there’s no truth behind them. Why wouldn’t you offer up the 4 teams? It’s clear he’s inferring PSG, Juventus, Barcelona and Real but he can’t say their names, as in reality they never put a in a formal bid and he’d risk tarnishing his reputation with them if he openly said who they were. They probably had a chat with Raiola who said I’ll get you Pogba but it’s going to be £400-500k a week to which they probably all declined. Barcelona are in a financial meltdown, Real made it clear they weren’t buying last summer and Juventus had just offloaded their own marquee talisman (Ronaldo) to United just to get him off the wage bill. They also got rid of Aaron Ramsey later in the season for this same reason. PSG were perhaps the only realistic candidate but their focus was on retaining Mbappe. There was some rumour about a move to United’s rivals City but at 29-years old and demanding higher wages than their highest paid (De Bruyne - whose also occupying Pogba’s position) he was never an option for them either. Just as another comparison, Salah, Mane, Kane, van Dijk, the EPLs elite players don’t earn more than £220k per week.

Pogba’s situation reminds me of the film ‘Million Dollar Baby’ where Hilary Swanks character (Maggie) is an upcoming female boxer who suffers an horrific injury ending her career and once the compensation payouts start coming in, the vultures (in this case her family) start to circle chasing the money. Although Raiola states he treats his players like he would his own Son, it’s just another facade he puts up as the ‘caring agent’ whose player’ feelings come first above money…absolute BS! If this is the case why did he receive a transfer fee himself when United resigned Pogba ($49m) and why has he constantly fed the media with stories of Pogba leaving United every transfer window since. It’s clear the motives are to get paid, as a player remaining at the same club isn’t good for agents pockets. Players moving on is big bucks; Zlatan must’ve been a dream for him given how many clubs he’s played for.

United of course aren’t innocent in this either and had it been left to Jose or Ole, Pogba would’ve left the club sooner with a transfer fee to recoup some of the lost £89m outlaid to bring him back. It’s become much clearer that the main reason Pogba was brought back to United was for commercial gain, which is the Glazers exclusive motive for doing anything around Old Trafford. United are to the Glazers what Pogba is to Raiola, so Pogba signing for United was the perfect storm for both parties. Football for the Glazers and Raiola is just a vehicle they use for monetary gain and I get that to some extent as generating cash does (should) drive success as it goes towards developing the team, but in this case it never has, it just goes to their own pockets.

This is the sad part for Pogba, as I believe although he’s not innocent, he’s clearly very naive given the road Raiola has paved for him. The fact Pogba can walk the streets of Manchester handing out food to the homeless in a bid to reflect his apparent ‘core values’ based on his own humble beginnings, to then stating United’s offer of £300k a week as ‘nothing’, clearly demonstrates the disconnect of the man with reality. With one weeks wages I could clear my mortgage. Those homeless people don’t have 50p…but £300k a week… ‘nothing’…very revealing.

The way the documentary is framed is via the lens of ‘poor me’ and how hard life is in Manchester playing for a top club being paid ridiculous money. I get that money doesn’t solve mental health issues but we don’t see mental issues with Paul. We see this fun, happy guy, holidaying with his Wife and family and partying with his friends, which again is perfectly great, as everyone’s entitled to enjoy themselves away from their job but it’s the disconnect from the values they try to put across in the documentary. A man not about money, but about true honest values yet on the other hand all you hear about is ‘the brand’. Brand, brand, brand!

Perhaps to start to form a conclusion on Pogba, firstly this documentary isn’t ageing well, given it started being filmed at the end of the 2020/21 season. It’s clear it didn’t go the way they had envisaged, expecting a transfer to occur last summer. Then they try to change the narrative of having a good season at United during 2021/22, which subsequently turned out to be a nightmare for both player and Club. The highlight for both was the opening day with a 5-1 win over Leeds with Pogba offering up 4 assists. United finished the season on their worst points return in EPL history and Pogba’s final game was an 8-minute cameo before going off injured against Liverpool at Anfield in United's worst game in EPL history. The documentary has been a PR catastrophe and it’s also unclear why the need to create it. I mean it’s clearly being made to make a soap opera out of his United exit with the final episode set-up to be some ‘big reveal’, similar to Antoine Greizmann’s (The Making of a Legend), which was basically a documentary calling time on his Athletico Madrid career when he joined Barcelona. Greizmann is now back on loan at Athletico since Barcelona can no longer afford his wages. Maybe this is how the French do big transfers?? It’s also a reflection of Pogba’s brand. His people can’t just conclude a transfer, they have to make a show about it. Maybe it’s also doubling as a promotion video to prospective buyers, although I don’t think it’s working.

I think the documentary just shone the light on everything that is wrong with the modern game and nobody has come out of it looking well. It has well and truly backfired, making Paul Pogba look like nothing more than a part time footballer player, with no link to reality whose only objective in the business is to maximise commercial revenues. The sad part about it is he’s too naive to even be aware of the bad people around him or the irony fact he’s already at the perfect club to facilitate this behaviour. I suspect in Railoa’s passing and hindsight, he’ll have wished he’d have snapped United’s hand off with that £300k a week 5 year deal.