According to a report by L’Équipe confirmed by AFP, French footballer Kylian Mbappé informed his club, PSG, on Monday that he would not activate the extra year that allows him to extend his contract until 2025. PSG have no plans to let their star player walk free at the end of his contract in 2024, which opens the door to a transfer this summer if negotiations fail by July 31.
Intoxication or definitive choice? Kylian Mbappé has informed Paris SG that he will not activate the extra year at his disposal to extend his contract until 2025, forcing his club to consider a departure this summer to recoup a transfer fee.
The French capital club has taken another blow to the head with the decision of its star striker, announced by letter on Monday June 12 and revealed by the daily L’Équipe.
It comes just over a year after his surprise extension at PSG, the club he joined in 2017 for €180 million from Monaco. The World Cup runner-up, courted in particular by Real Madrid, had extended his contract until 2024, with the possibility of activating an option for a further year.
The Frenchman made his decision known on Monday in a letter sent to the club, a source close to the negotiations confirmed to AFP. The deadline for making his choice is July 31, 2023. Contacted late on Monday evening, Mbappé’s entourage had no immediate reaction.
A departure of the 24-year-old striker at the end of his contract, in the summer of 2024, would prove catastrophic for PSG as, in addition to the void left in the team, the club would be deprived of the millions of euros that a transfer would secure.
In these conditions, the red-and-blue club has two solutions, according to the source close to the negotiations: either convince him to finally activate the extension clause, before the July 31 deadline, or try to sell him to a club this summer and recover a large sum of money in exchange.
One more year of contract
The wish expressed by the Frenchman on Monday is yet another annoyance for the owners of QSI, the Qatari fund that arrived in 2011, after an already difficult season on and off the pitch, despite winning the French league title.
Having failed again in the Champions League, the club is currently busy looking for a successor to Christophe Galtier, who was placed in an ejector seat a year after his arrival from Nice.
Without a coach, PSG also said farewell to Argentine world champion Lionel Messi, whose contract came to an end and who left to the whistles of the Parc des Princes, and to the experienced Sergio Ramos. The future of striker Neymar, under contract until 2025, is also unclear.
As for Mbappé, he had already hinted that he might leave in 2024, at the UNFP trophies ceremony on May 28, during which he won a fourth consecutive Ligue 1 player of the season award. “I said that next year I’d play for PSG. I’ve still got one year left on my contract, so I’m going to honor it,” said the 2022-2023 season’s top scorer.
Monday’s development will take place in the middle of a gathering of the French national team, of which Mbappé became captain after the World Cup in Qatar, which ended with a defeat to Argentina in the final.
In Clairefontaine, where Les Bleus are preparing for their upcoming Euro qualifiers, the striker appeared very relaxed on Monday. Smiling and playful, he took part in the late afternoon training session in good spirits, joked on numerous occasions with Didier Deschamps and Antoine Griezmann and signed dozens of autographs for the spectators invited by the federation. In any case, there was nothing to suggest that such an important episode was taking place behind the scenes.