Paris Saint-Germain give Kylian Mbappe deadline for decision on ...
Paris Saint-Germain have sent a three-page letter to Kylian Mbappe accusing him of unsettling the club this summer and giving him a deadline of July 31 to make a decision about his future.
As first reported by French news outlet l’Equipe, PSG’s letter accuses Mbappe of causing “enormous damage” to the club by publicly announcing that he intends to leave as a free agent next year, stating that the matter should have remained private. It also accuses him of having “a lack of sincerity” for timing this announcement during the summer transfer window.
The letter ends by requesting a meeting to resolve the situation to avoid “paralysis of the club” and giving the France international a deadline of July 31 to decide whether to sign a contract extension or be sold.
PSG’s letter is in response to one written by Mbappe in June where he explained to president Nasser Al-Khelaifi why he did not wish to activate the one-year extension in his contract. This would leave him as a free agent in the summer of 2024.
The 24-year-old forward had written an initial letter to PSG earlier in June to inform the club that he would not be exercising the extension clause.
PSG are determined to not allow Mbappe to depart the club for free, with Al-Khelaifi emphasising this on Wednesday and stating that “the door is open” for his departure if he does not extend his contract.
“We want him to stay but he can’t leave for free,” the PSG president told Le Parisien. “It was our oral agreement and he had expressed it publicly in an interview. So it’s not debatable.
“I was really shocked to learn that he intended to leave for free. It’s very disappointing because Kylian is a fantastic boy, a real gentleman, and leaving for free, weakening the biggest French club, it’s not him. When I received this information, I was shocked and disappointed.
“That’s why he has to decide next week, or at most in two weeks. And if he doesn’t want to sign a new contract, the door is open. It’s like that for him and for everyone else. No one is bigger than the club, no player, not even me. It’s very clear.
“In football standards, you never see your best player leave the club for free. It never happens.”
Real Madrid came close to signing Mbappe, who was a fan of the Spanish side as a child, last summer before the former Monaco forward performed a dramatic U-turn by committing his future to PSG.
Mbappe posed with a ‘2025’ PSG shirt but the deal expires in 2024 unless the clause is triggered.
He scored 29 goals in 34 league games in the 2022-23 season, winning his fifth Ligue 1 title with PSG and his sixth overall.
L’Equipe stated that Mbappe’s entourage could not be reached for comment.
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(Photo: Julian Finney/Getty Images)
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