French soccer world champion Kylian Mbappé stays with Paris Saint-Germain.
“I’m very happy to stay in France, in Paris, in my city,” said the 23-year-old on Saturday evening before the last game of the season at the Prinzenpark. As club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi announced, the exceptional striker extended his expiring contract for three years and thus decided against a move to Spanish record champions Real Madrid.
“I hope that I can continue to do what I love most: play football and win trophies,” said Mbappé before the duel in the evening with FC Metz, which PSG easily won 5-0 (3-0). Mbappé put together a three-pack (25th, 28th, 50th). Neymar scored his 100th competitive goal for Paris (31st).
On Saturday afternoon, the newspapers “L’Equipe”, “Marca” and “Le Parisien-Aujourd’hui en France” as well as the radio station “RMC” reported that the striker had informed Real President Florentino Pérez of his decision.
complaint announced
In Spain, the outcry was loud. League president Javier Tebas called the agreement “a disgrace to football”. The fact that PSG is extending Mbappé “thanks to enormous sums” after the club has “lost 700 million euros” in recent seasons and already has “salary income of 600 million euros” is “an insult to football,” Tebas wrote Twitter.
The Spanish league announced that it would lodge a complaint with the European Football Union, the European Union and the French tax authorities.
Mbappé, who has been with PSG since 2017, asked for his approval to move to Los Blancos last summer. But Paris refused. A year later, when the contract expired, it was expected that the exceptional striker would move to Real on a free transfer. Now things turned out differently.