“You got what you wanted, didn’t you?” asked Nasser El-Khelaifi, smiling into the press room of Paris Saint-Germain’s new training center in the Poissy suburb, and rising from his seat, smiling. What was that? Voilá: the news that Kylian Mbappé, the quintessential PSG and France national team player, is up for sale a year before his current contract expires. “My position is very clear: if Kylian wants to stay, we want that too. But he has to sign a new contract because we can’t let the best player in the world go for nothing,” said El-Khelaifi.
The reason for the meeting with the media in Paris was the presentation of the new coach Luis Enrique, 53, coach of the Spanish national team until the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. He too had been asked about Mbappé, 24, and it had already become clear that the French world champion of 2018 was up for grabs. Mbappé has a valid working paper, “but we don’t know what’s happening in the background, everything is constantly changing,” said Luis Enrique.
Recently there had been repeated talks between the PSG leaders and the Mbappé party. Without a result. A few weeks ago, Mbappé wrote – or as he puts it: confirmed – that he would not renew his current contract. He wants to spend the coming season at PSG, then it’s over. That would mean that he could change free of charge in 2024 – and collect a high signing fee. But the owners of PSG want to see money. “He himself said that he didn’t want to go for free. Now if someone has changed their mind, it’s not our fault,” El-Khelaifi fumed. In Le Parisien he gave Mbappé an ultimatum. “Kylian has a maximum of one or two weeks. If he doesn’t sign a new contract, the outcome is open.”
What that means in concrete terms for Mbappé’s professional future remained open on Wednesday. Real Madrid is considered the preferred destination, but has so far made no apparent move to sign Mbappé this summer. This could be due to the fact that Mbappé would also like to see a three-digit million amount in the event of a change, even if the receiving club has to deposit an approximate transfer fee of 200 million euros with PSG. But there is not only speculation about Real Madrid, there are also said to be people interested in Mbappé in England, we are talking about Manchester United, which is said to be bought by Qatar soon, and Liverpool FC. Should he really leave, the question will arise as to how PSG will compensate for the departure. A variant: Paris is trying to get the Englishman Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur), who is being courted by FC Bayern. Another: Randal Kolo Muani from Eintracht Frankfurt. Kolo Muani comes from Bondy, on the outskirts of Paris. Like Mbappe.
There was a lot going on at the start: Luis Enrique, PSG’s new head coach, on Wednesday at his presentation in Paris.
(Photo: Blondet Eliot/Imago)
Luis Enrique was crushed with praise from his new boss. He is “one of the best offensive coaches in the world,” said El-Khelaifi. He himself suffered in 2017 when PSG lost 6-1 at FC Barcelona, then coached by Luis Enrique, and won 4-0 in the first leg of the Champions League in the round of 16. The Catalans’ heroes back then: Lionel Messi, who has just left PSG for Miami, and Brazilian striker Neymar, who is still employed by PSG. There are also rumors about his future, Luis Enrique insisted that he had not spoken to Neymar. Basically, he only made binding statements in two respects. He wants to offer entertaining football – and learn French quickly. “So you can first write what you want: I don’t understand anything,” joked the Spaniard.
Luis Enrique already knows that he will have to integrate half a dozen newcomers, including Spanish international Marco Asensio (Real Madrid) and Lucas Hernández, who is moving to the Seine from Munich. On the payroll at PSG there are also nine top-class players with an uncertain future, including a German world champion from 2014 (Julian Draxler / most recently Benfica Lisbon) and an Argentine world champion from 2022 (Leandro Paredes / Juventus Turin). Either way: Luis Enrique is demanding the Champions League title. “I love this pressure,” said the Spaniard, who has signed a contract until 2025. His salary will be a multiple of his former national team manager’s salary in Spain. There he had earned three million euros gross per year. The Spaniard succeeds Christophe Galtier, who was officially sacked on Wednesday. His time as a PSG coach came to an end when his team lost to FC Bayern Munich in the round of 16 of the previous Champions League season.
Galtier hit the headlines again on Friday. Because of a racism affair, he was briefly taken into custody and interrogated. The allegations still come from his time as a Nice coach, he divorced there in 2022 in a dispute. Sports director Julien Fournier had whispered months ago that if the real reasons for the separation were found out, he would never again be able to hold a coaching position anywhere in Europe. An alleged email from Galtier is circulating, in which he is said to have complained about a team “full of scum”: “All blacks, and half the team goes to the mosque on Fridays.” Galtier denies the allegations. Should he actually no longer get a job, the financial damage will be limited. Together with his assistant, he will receive a severance payment of almost ten million euros for the last remaining year of his contract in Paris.