Mbappe drops bombshell Real Madrid transfer decision

Martin Macdonald

• Updated: 4 Feb 2024 09:00 GMT
• 3 min read

Kylian Mbappe has decided to leave Paris Saint-Germain at the end of the season and wants to join Real Madrid, according to Le Parisien.

While no deal has been reached with the 14-time Champions League winner yet, PSG bosses are now resigned to losing their all-time top goalscorer for nothing this summer.

Mbappe performed a sensational U-turn in May, 2022, when Madrid believed they had secured his agreement to move to Santiago Bernabeu that summer.

However, the French World Cup winner instead signed a new contract with PSG, which was advertised by the club as extending through to 2025.

It later transpired that the deal was only actually valid through 2024 and Mbappe had the right to activate a one-year add on.

Mbappe rejected one-year extension

He neglected to do that last summer, enraging PSG president Nasser al-Khelaifi, and was banished to the “bomb squad” alongside players who had no future at the club. PSG even accepted a sensational €300 million bid from Saudi Arabia’s Al-Hilal for the ex-Monaco man but he spurned the opportunity to move to Cristiano Ronaldo’s league.

While the majority of that bomb squad has departed Parc des Princes, Mbappe was reintegrated into Luis Enrique’s first-team squad and has gone on to lead his side to the top of the Ligue 1 table yet again.

Club bosses have tested the waters in recent days regarding a possible renewal but PSG now firmly understand that Mbappe, 25, is seeking a new challenge and privately admit the battle is over.

Over in the Spanish capital, meanwhile, plans are afoot for the the biggest contract in the dressing room being offered to Mbappe in a bid to seal a deal at the season’s end.

They have been burned before, back in 2022, and an agreement is not yet a certainty.

But Mbappe is known to be a fan of los Blancos and club bosses are optimistic of luring him to Real Madrid.

Mbappe, according to the report in Le Parisien, is determined to lead his country at this summer’s forthcoming Olympic Games and that could yet provide an impediment to negotiations with Madrid.

For now, however, it is believed Mbappe is deciding the right time to announce his intention to depart Paris after seven goal-laden seasons. The Parisians face Real Sociedad on February 14 in the first leg of the Champions League last 16 with the return leg in Spain on March 5.

Meanwhile, it was also claimed that the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) anticipated a knock-on effect of Mbappe’s departure. Broadcast revenues are forecast to be 20 percent less for the period covering 2024-2029 without Mbappe in Ligue 1.