Column | Paul Pogba, the world’s most expensive footballer, shows why he’s a millennial marketing machine on Hong Kong trip
The Manchester United superstar, with his dabs, ever-changing haircut and signature dance moves, is a dream footballer for the social media age – but has curmudgeons like this writer pining for simpler times
To the Adidas flagship store in Hong Kong, where the world’s most expensive footballer, Manchester United’s Paul Pogba, is to grace us mortals with his presence. It doesn’t take long for me to feel like a very old man.
“I’m not a Manchester United fan,” says a young American near the front of the autograph queue. This is curious, because he is wearing the latest Manchester United kit, and has several hours’ wait ahead, in the heat and humidity of a Kowloon June.
He continues: “But when I heard about this, I thought I might as well get the photo.”
One sentence to sum up for this curmudgeonly non-millennial reporter everything wrong with modern football, and indeed life – but also why Pogba is a marketing machine for a social media age.
Firmly in the antisocial media camp, I wait with my colleagues, several of whom are wearing Man U shirts, under a giant inflatable Pogba head that seems in danger of breaking from its moorings and floating across the harbour.
Hip-hop in French and English pumps out. We have a long wait as Pogba is late, naturally, so the playlist gets multiple airings.