Paris Saint-Germain’s summer is hosted by the soap opera Kylian Mbappé. And, less than two weeks before the resumption of the championship, the club and the player are at least in agreement to continue to disagree. While the world champion had been ordered to choose before Monday, July 31 to extend or leave, this deadline is finally “lapsed”.
“We had together agreed on the date of July 31, 2023 to express your wish and allow us to draw the consequences”, wrote the PSG to the player in a letter of July 3, of which AFP had a copy. The choice offered to Kylian Mbappé is the only solution “to avoid a lasting paralysis of the club caused by [his] recent actions”, it was written in this letter in response to a first missive from the player announcing that he would not activate the option for an additional year left to his discretion. “July 31 would only remain relevant if Kylian Mbappé suddenly did not want to inform the club that he wanted to renew,” adds this source.
From now on, the PSG no longer envisages a reversal of the situation. Kylian Mbappé “was never going to extend”. So he “is for sale, the club actually already made that decision seven days ago preemptively removing him from the squad” for the Asian tour.
The positions between the two parties remain, a priori, irreconcilable. The club does not want its striker to go free at the end of his contract, which expires in the summer of 2024. PSG, which still hopes to receive a transfer fee, has therefore placed Kylian Mbappé on its list of transferable players. Because the latter has always refused to activate the clause allowing him to extend until 2025: he wants to go to the end of his contract in order to be able to choose his next destination.
Several rumors send the striker from the France team to Chelsea or Barcelona. The British press also evokes Liverpool.
Concrete proposals have arrived on President Nasser Al-Khelaïfi’s desk, in particular the pharaonic one from the Saudi club Al-Hilal (700 million euros, including 300 for the transfer), as well as offers with exchanges of players from European clubs.
But there is really only one credible suitor at the moment, Real Madrid. In Spain, several media ensure that the world champion will join the White House this summer. PSG are even sure that a “pre-agreement” has been reached for him to join Los Merengues in a year. With a signing bonus for him, but nothing for his current employer.
Paris also says it is “certain that Real Madrid will make an offer, but at the very last moment, and a very low offer, bordering on insulting. It will be a pretext to say that they will have tried and that the PSG will have blocked the affair by greed”, sighs the same source.
While the team prepares for its third friendly in Japan, Tuesday in Tokyo against Inter Milan, Kylian Mbappé continues to train at the PSG Campus in Poissy with the young people and the “banished”, including two other ex-world champions , Julian Draxler (Germany 2014) and Leandro Paredes (Argentina 2022).
According to a source close to the Mbappé family, it was decided last week not to communicate before the end of the transfer window, on August 31. Until then, will the player be kept out? Will PSG dare not put him on their list for the 2023-2024 Champions League?
In the meantime, Hugo Ekitike scored points against Cerezo Osaka, despite the defeat (3-2). He should still be the striker against Inter Milan on Tuesday in Tokyo (12 p.m. French time).
“The next significant date will be August 12, the first Ligue 1 game against Lorient,” concludes the management of the French champions. “We will have to see if the manager and the club choose to include Kylian Mbappé in the starting squad or not. »
