FRANCE’S union of professional football players is launching legal action to protect footballers from the mental pressure their clubs put on them when they are cold-shouldered until they sign a new contract or accept to leave.

With the winter transfer window up and running in Europe, the National Union of Professional Footballers (UNFP) said today that it has commissioned a law firm to lodge a complaint with the Paris public prosecutor for extortion and harassment.

With its legal action — which does not target a specific side — the union wants to highlight the bullying that players have to endure when their clubs sideline them in order to force them into extending their deals or agreeing on a transfer when they are no longer wanted.

“These practices which are widespread — 180 players since the start of the current season — are even claimed by the clubs, who no longer hesitate to use sophisticated means of communication to complete the ostracisation of the players concerned,” the union said in a statement.

The UNFP said such practices are contrary to France’s Professional Football Charter and employment law, and may constitute a criminal offence.

“The use of moral coercion to induce a person to agree to sign or terminate a contract constitutes the offence of extortion,” it said.

The union said it has identified in the press some 50 recent cases of “lofting,” a widespread practice that involves keeping players on the sidelines in so-called loft training groups to increase pressure on them.

“In reality, the number of victims of these practices is much higher, as everyone knows,” the UNFP said.

Earlier this season, French football’s biggest star Kylian Mbappe was excluded from a pre-season tour of Asia and barred from training with Paris Saint-Germain’s main first-team group amid a contract dispute with the club.

The striker later returned after “constructive and positive talks” between the two parties, the club said.

Details of the supposed deal reached between Mbappe and PSG have not been revealed. According to reports in French media, the player agreed to forgo several financial bonuses if he moves, meaning he won’t leave the club for free.

Before he joined Juventus on a free transfer in 2019, Adrien Rabiot was also kept on the sidelines for months by PSG as it became clear he wouldn’t sign a new deal.

And last year another former PSG player, Hatem Ben Arfa, won a court appeal after the club was found guilty of moral harassment and ordered to pay a compensation fee of €100,000 (£86,107).

Ben Arfa joined PSG in 2016. But after scoring twice in a French Cup quarter-final in April 2017, he never played for the first team again until the end of his contract in June 2018, an exile of nearly 70 matches.