Ligue 1 – Nasser Al-Khelaïfi: “I want to enjoy watching PSG play”

Your answer on the future of Mbappé was short in the press conference, but it is an important subject…

Nasser Al-Khelaïfi: I don’t want to go back to that. I gave our position: we want him to stay, we can repeat it two or three times. But he can’t leave for free. And that’s the verbal agreement we had with him, and he had actually said in interviews that he wouldn’t go free. And it’s non-negotiable. I was really shocked to hear that he was ready to go for free. I know Kylian well, he is a fantastic player, a fantastic boy, a gentleman, but it is not him, it does not look like him, to harm the great French club, his country. It’s not Kylian.

There is not much time left to find an agreement.

NAK: That’s why he has to decide, by next week, ten days, maximum two weeks. If he doesn’t want to re-sign, the door is open, of course. To him as to the others, no one is bigger than the club, no player, absolutely none, and neither am I.

Legally he could complete his last year of contract and leave free, he is not obliged to accept a transfer offer this summer…

NAK: But in football standards, you’ve never seen one of the best players in the world leave a club for free, it never happened.

How important is style of play in choosing Luis Enrique?

NAK: We chose him for his game philosophy. We have to play attacking football, we have the players for that, we don’t have the players to defend. Fans want to see their team play good football, I also want to enjoy watching my team play. For the results, of course we will lose matches. But we have to work from the base, with the football we want to implement from the youth teams to the first team, that’s also why we have this beautiful training center (in Poissy).

Where is the project to bring in French players?

NAK: We would be proud to welcome some French footballers, some are coming, and with this training center we hope to have many French players in the future, from Paris and its surroundings. That’s why I say this center is one of our best investments. At the last World Cup, the place where the greatest number of players came from was Paris and its region, 29 players, against 13 for the second place, London and its region, I believe. We have a lot of talent here, we have to take advantage of it.

You said that a year ago, what went wrong with Galtier?

NAK: Galtier is a fantastic person, he did his best, he was very respectful with everyone, I mean everyone. I’m not looking for excuses for him, but it was really a difficult season, with the World Cup. It’s not a new era every time, but with Luis Enrique it is. I’m not going to talk about trophies but about how we are going to play football.

How is your relationship with the football adviser Luis Campos, we have heard a lot of things lately…

NAK: I too have heard a lot of things (laughs). Luis does a fantastic job, I talk to him four to five hours a day, sometimes he calls me at midnight, one in the morning. We are very happy with his work.

Why would it be possible to win the Champions League with Luis Enrique?

NAK: I never said you had to win the Champions League with him, I was very clear, what I want is to play good football. There are too many expectations around the Champions League. I ask you the question: how many clubs can win it, have invested, have worked to win it? It’s not just PSG, there are a lot of them. Of course we have ambition, 100%, but ambition with logic, we have plenty of time to work, the lights are green, we don’t care about immediate results. This is the new era of PSG. It changes. You the media, you put it in our head that we had to win the C1, but everyone wants to win, me too. But first we have to build the foundations.

Are you looking for investors?

NAK: But we have some, we are talking to them, if you know any new ones, let us know (laughs). But they are obsessed with the question of the stadium. Everyone wants a stadium, everywhere the big clubs have their stadium.

Is there any progress on this subject?

NAK: No one contacted me, yet the mayor (Anne Hidalgo) has my number.