At the end of the current campaign, Kylian Mbappe has informed Paris Saint-Germain that he is leaving the team.
According to two people with knowledge of the matter who spoke to The Associated Press, the France international notified PSG President Nasser Al-Khelaifi that he would not be staying at the team once his contract expired. Because Mbappe hasn’t officially announced his decision, both individuals talked under the condition of anonymity.
According to one source, Mbappe—who Real Madrid has previously courted—did not specify which team he would play for next.
Prior to Wednesday’s UEFA Champions League round of 16 first leg encounter, Mbappe watches during warm-up. The twenty-five-year-old joined PSG in 2017. (Getty Images/Alex Pantling)
PSG remained silent, but a second source with knowledge of Mbappe’s decision claimed that the conditions of his exit were still being hammered out with the team and that no formal announcement would be made until they were.
He told the team last year that he will not be signing a contract extension through 2022.
Although the contract was actually for until 2024 with an option for an additional year, PSG paraded him at Parc des Princes when he signed that final agreement, holding up a jersey with the year 2025 printed on it. According to reports, Mbappe was displeased with the incident and felt let down by the team for not signing more elite players—aside from Lionel Messi—despite what they had promised to accomplish when he signed the contract.
Although Madrid appears to be Mbappe’s most likely destination, a number of other teams hoping to recruit the former World Cup winner are expected to engage in a bidding wаr when he leaves PSG.
After joining PSG in 2017, the 25-year-old Mbappe left Monaco in a deal reportedly valued at $190 million US. He arrived concurrently with Neymar, who left Barcelona for PSG for a record-breаking $222 million.
Real Madrid made a $190 million offer for the forward in 2021, but PSG rejected it. The player signed his current deal the following year.
The French striker has not yet disclosed which team, after PSG, he plans to join.
After Messi and Neymar left the French club last year, Mbappe will be the most high-profile player to exit in recent memory. The brilliant attacking tandem competed together for two seasons, but neither year could they go past the quarterfinals of the Champions League, losing to Real Madrid and Bayern Munich in the final sixteen.
With PSG, Mbappe won five French league championships, but he hasn’t been able to help the team win the Champions League yet. In the pаndemic-shortened 2020 season, PSG advanced to the championship game but lost 1-0 to Bayern because neither Mbappe nor Neymar could have an influence.
By taking home the top honor in European club soccer this year, Mbappe may still end his career on a positive note. In the first leg of PSG’s Round of 16 match against Real Sociedad on Wednesday, he scored a goal that extended his club record to 243 goals in just 290 games, including 38 in the Champions League.
In addition, he is third on PSG’s all-time record with 93 assists.
Mbappe’s turbulent PSG tenure
With his decision, Mbappe ends a protracted story that had darkened his last season with the team.
A protracted transfer standoff last summer nearly brought an end to his PSG career. He was forced to practice with periphery players after notifying the club he would not be renewing his contract for an additional year. He was also left off of a preseason tour to South Korea and Japan. PSG stated that it would rather to sell him than allow him to go for free in 2024, but Mbappe turned down a 300 million euro offer from Al-Hilal, a Saudi team.
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The standoff continued as Mbappe was left out of PSG’s opening league match of the season, a boring 0-0 home stalemate that he watched from the stands. However, PSG soon gave in and allowed him to return to the starting lineup.
Mbappe has occasionally shown his obvious dissatisfaction with the team both on and off the field prior to that.
He appeared to be upset at being utilized as a lone center forward when he liked to play behind a striker like France teammate Olivier Giourd, according to a snarky remark he wrote following a scoreless tie early in the previous season. He punned the word pivot (target man) in his Instagram post, #pivotgang, which was later removed.
Even with his outstanding scoring record, Mbappe hasn’t always been the team’s most popular player.
Given his declared goal of winning the Champions League and Ballon d’Or title several times, some supporters questioned why he stayed at all. He didn’t win with PSG either.
The evolving model of PSG
Since PSG has already taken steps to refocus its efforts in the last 12 months due to the departures of Neymar and Messi, it’s possible that they anticipated this moment.
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Following their takeover by Qatar Sports Investments in June 2011, PSG’s fortunes improved following years of issues with soccer viоlence and on-field disappointments. With some of the biggest stars in the game, such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Mbappe, Neymar, and Messi, PSG dominated French soccer for the most part. But since last year, when it signed Bradley Barcola and Randal Kolo Muani, it has started to move away from that paradigm.
Madrid has long thought of Mbappe as the perfect replacement for Karim Benzema, who left the Spanish powerhouse to join Al Ittihad in Saudi Arabia last year.
Mbappe will leave a huge hole at PSG, so it will be interesting to see whether they can find someone to replace him.