Kylian Mbappe, the striker for Paris Saint-Germain, was told on Wednesday by the club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi that he must sign a new contract if he wants to remain with the club because the defending French champions would not allow him to go for free next year.
Mbappe informed PSG in a letter that he will not be extending his current deal, which is set to expire in 2024. The letter was issued the previous month.
However, he then clarified that he had not requested the French club to enable him to transfer to Spanish giants Real Madrid. Real Madrid is a team that has attempted to get the World Cup-winning attacker in the past but has been unsuccessful.
PSG is in the difficult position of having to decide whether or not to let Mbappe play out the last year of his contract and risk losing all of the $195.71 million (180 million euros) that they paid in 2017 to lure him away from AS Monaco.
“Let me be absolutely clear about where I stand. I don’t want to keep harping on this, but if Kylian wants to remain, that’s exactly what we want him to do. After announcing Luis Enrique as the new manager of the club, Al-Khelaifi reminded the press that Enrique still needed to sign a new deal with the organization.
“We don’t want to lose the greatest player in the world for free, and it’s something that we just can’t do. This is a club for French speakers.
“He promised that he would never go away without paying. It is not my responsibility if he decides to go in a different direction today. It should be pretty obvious that we don’t want to throw away the opportunity to work with the finest player in the world.
Mbappe has finished as the top scorer in Ligue 1 in each of the previous five seasons, and PSG will be desperate to retain him despite the fact that they have already lost Lionel Messi on a free transfer.
Messi, a seven-time winner of the Ballon d’Or, decided without renewing his contract in order to pursue a transfer to Inter Miami.
Mbappe also said that French President Emmanuel Macron did not have any impact on the decisions he made about his professional future, despite the fact that Macron had stated that he would want the forward to remain in the nation’s capital.