PSG decline Real’s €160m Mbappe bid
Paris Saint-germain have rejected a €160 million offer from Real Madrid for Kylian Mbappe but the French club’s sporting director Leonardo on Wednesday admitted that they will not be able to keep the World Cup winner “if he wants to leave”. “Our position has always been the same, to keep Kylian and extend his contract,” Leonardo said as he discussed the future of Mbappe, whose current contract expires at the end of this season. It emerged on Tuesday that Real had made a bid for Mbappe, a player they have courted ever since he was a boy, was invited with his parents to take in a game at the Santiago Bernabeu and taken to meet Zinedine Zidane. The offer has been knocked back by PSG, who say it is “not enough” for someone who arrived from Monaco in 2017 in a €180 million deal.
PARIS: Paris Saint-germain have rejected a €160 million offer from Real Madrid for Kylian Mbappe but the French club’s sporting director Leonardo on Wednesday admitted that they will not be able to keep the World Cup winner “if he wants to leave”.
“Our position has always been the same, to keep Kylian and extend his contract,” Leonardo said as he discussed the future of Mbappe, whose current contract expires at the end of this season.
It emerged on Tuesday that Real had made a bid for Mbappe, a player they have courted ever since he was a young boy, was invited with his parents to take in a game at the Santiago Bernabeu and taken to meet Zinedine Zidane at their training ground.
The offer has been knocked back by PSG, who say it is “not enough” for someone who arrived from Monaco in 2017 in a €180 million deal.
Real, though, are laying the ground to bring in Mbappe now, even though he will be able to sign as a free agent next summer if he does not extend his contract in Paris. “If a player wants to leave, he will leave. The club, the project is bigger than any one person,” said Leonardo, the Brazilian, as he slammed the Spanish giants for being “disrespectful” in their approach of the 22-year-old.
The offer comes with just six days to go before the summer transfer window in Europe closes on August 31 and with PSG desperate to keep hold of a player they still consider their crown jewel despite the presence of Neymar and, now, of Lionel
Messi in the French capital.
With Neymar and Messi yet to play this season, Mbappe has played a central role as PSG have won their opening three Ligue 1 games. He netted his first goal of the campaign last weekend against Brest. “We have done everything for Kylian, even this transfer window has been built around him,” insisted Leonardo.
However, he admitted it “seems clear” that Mbappe— who was born and brought up in the Paris suburbs—wants to go and said the player had “always promised that he would not go for free”. Those comments suggest Mbappe is therefore likely to leave this month, at least as long as Real come back with an improved offer.
According to their latest accounts published in July, the 13-time European champions boast net assets of €534 million and had €122 million cash in the bank. Their total wage bill for last season was 448 million euros, slightly below the limit of 473.3 million euros set by La Liga.