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All sounds So easy.
Kylian Mbappé has said that he wants to leave Paris Saint-Germain.
Real Madrid wants to sign him and made an offer at the beginning of January. This summer, Mbappé will be out of contract and will be able to join the club of his choice.
He is now free to negotiate the conditions with whoever he wants and has ruled out the option of staying in France.
But several questions remain unresolved. Including the big one.
The transfer saga between Mbappé and Madrid has had more twists and turns than many care to remember. And even now, at a very late stage in his final negotiations, he is not sure where he will play next season.
On Friday, Mbappé informed his PSG teammates of his decision to leave in a speech in the locker room.
But club sources, who, like everyone quoted here, preferred to speak anonymously to protect relations, said there was no mention of who he would join, even though Mbappé had previously told teammates he would like it to be Madrid. .
Mbappé has known the conditions that Madrid are willing to offer him since early January, an offer that left some influential members of his camp unconvinced, which has delayed Real Madrid’s attempts to sign him. They were also not impressed by Madrid’s request that they communicate a decision in mid-January.
Mbappé’s speech to his teammates at PSG’s training ground on Friday came a day after news emerged of his decision to leave at the end of the season.
The circumstances of his departure are yet to be determined; PSG and the player are expected to make an official announcement regarding this in the coming months.
Let’s take a look at the issues at play, starting by delving a little deeper into what PSG and Mbappé still have to discuss.
When is a free transfer no longer a free transfer?
In August, PSG and Mbappé were going through a moment of high tension. Mbappé had been excluded from first-team training and did not travel on the club’s pre-season tour after indicating that he would not accept the option to extend his contract for another year.
At Mbappé’s request, a meeting was held just before the start of the season between him and the club’s president, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, and his reinstatement was agreed upon. He played the first game of the new campaign and after the game another meeting was held in which the sports director Luis Campos and coach Luis Enrique were also present.
The French club has always wanted to emphasize that a possible departure of Mbappé at the end of 2023-24 would not be a ‘free transfer’, although he would leave at the end of his contract. The agreement reached in those two meetings explains why.
It is a complex deal that covers several scenarios, but in each of them, according to sources familiar with its terms, Mbappé would financially compensate the club if he left when his contract expires after June 30.
The final outcome will depend on talks between the player and the club over the coming months, but PSG sources describe this as a legally binding written agreement.
The topic was discussed by Mbappé and Al-Khelaifi on Tuesday when the player said he intended to leave this summer. Al-Khelaifi reiterated the club’s stance on Mbappé: that they believe he has to make financial sacrifices related to his earnings at PSG, or pay them part of any signing bonus he receives from Madrid.
And the issue is still being discussed.
When Madrid attempted to sign Mbappé in 2022, they offered a signing bonus of €130m (£111m; $140m at current exchange rates) and a salary of €26m a year.
Madrid’s most recent offer to Mbappé was lower, although still substantial enough to make him by far the highest-paid player on the Madrid squad. Mbappé’s annual salary at PSG is around €75 million after taxes, before bonuses.
Speaking on Friday, a PSG source suggested that whatever Mbappé agrees “with Madrid” would define what comes next.
Does Mbappé have other offers from other places?
PSG sources have said in recent weeks that they have heard that Mbappé has strong interest from a “third club”. These same sources stated that they did not fully trust this information and believed it could be part of a negotiation tactic. Regarding previous offers, in July 2023 PSG received and accepted an offer of 300 million euros from the Saudi club Al Hilal for the player.
Mbappé’s team declined to comment on whether there are other offers this time.
All the information The Athletic What has been gathered suggests that Mbappé only has one offer outside of PSG: that of Madrid. Any club in the world would like to have the forward in their squad, but it seems that the Frenchman has precisely that offer on the table.
What’s the latest from Madrid?
For weeks now, sources from the Madrid coaching staff have expressed confidence in the idea that Mbappé will be part of their squad next season, and that confidence has only grown this week, even before the news of the player’s decision emerged. to leave PSG.
That was the message that the board conveyed to the senior figures of Valdebebas during this week’s trip to Germany, where the team played the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 against RB Leipzig on Tuesday night. .
However, since Thursday Madrid sources prefer to downplay the possibility that an agreement has been reached with Mbappé.
Nothing fundamental has changed from Madrid’s point of view. They would still like to sign Mbappé, a player they have followed for years, and the definitive sign of his determination to do so is the leading role that Florentino Pérez has played in the negotiations.
So what can we expect next? Surely Mbappé will not end up staying…
In any story involving Real Madrid and Kylian Mbappé, it is dangerous to speculate.
But we do know that it is yet to be confirmed whether Mbappé and Madrid have reached an agreement, and it seems that no other club has yet made him an offer.
We also know that, despite this saga, PSG is determined to retain Ethan, Mbappé’s 17-year-old brother, whom the club do Expect to sign a new agreement.
Another detail is also important. Madrid knew that Mbappé was going to communicate his decision to PSG this week. That tells you that they are still in very close contact.
(Top photo: Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images)