Paris Saint-Germain have gone a little further to ensure that their players behave over the Christmas period this year.

It's always a fear for clubs with winter breaks that their players may enjoy themselves too much while away from the team - after all, it's Christmas and people want to celebrate.

The big worry is over-eating, as no coach wants to see his star players turn up for the first training session back asking for a size up on the usual for their kit.

One way to ensure that is to set a routine for your players, allowing them the freedom to be at home while also making sure that they at least do some sort of exercise.

That, of course, does require some trust in your players, however.

You'd think you could trust elite professionals somewhat - they've made it to the very top of the game, after all, and that will take professional discipline these days.

But when you've spent over half a billion euros on your team, perhaps you're just less inclined to take any risks.

And that's probably why PSG have decided to track their players via GPS this Christmas.

Marca, quoting Le Parisien, report that the French league leaders are nice enough to give players a three or four-day break from being watched (and a little longer for those travelling to the Americas), but once that's over it's back to being tracked at all times.

It's to ensure that players return to the squad at roughly the same weight they left it at, with Marca again reporting that they've got leeway of 1kg.

The players have their directed personal training routines and the GPS will allow the club to know exactly who has been doing it and who has spent most of the time lying on the couch eating and watching whatever is on French TV at Christmas.

It would be easy to say that PSG are treating their players a little like children by not trusting them to do what they're told, but really it's more akin to tagging wild animals or people on parole.

Is that what Neymar and Mbappe signed up for when they joined for world record fees? Probably not, although when you're being paid a reported €36.8 million a year you can't have too many complaints.

It's clear that PSG are pulling out all the stops to ensure this is a season to remember for the club, and they'll need to make sure they've got all the help possible when they face Real Madrid in the Champions League in a couple of months - you can bet that Cristiano Ronaldo won't be letting himself go.