Kylian Mbappé is not on the list of Paris Saint-Germain players who will take part in a tour of Japan from Saturday, according to the list published by the club on Friday, without giving an explanation for the absence of his star.
This decision by PSG, reigning French champion, comes as the two parties are divided over the extension of the French striker’s contract. The younger brother of the captain of the France team, Ethan Mbappé, 16, is one of the 29 Parisian players who fly to Japan.
The future of Paris Saint-Germain star striker Kylian Mbappé seems more uncertain than ever after his absence from the list of players to play the summer tour in Japan published Friday by the club, a new episode of a soap opera around the extension of his contract.
An increasingly uncertain future for PSG
Will leave, will not leave? While the club wants to keep him on condition that he extends his contract or gives it up this summer, the player says he wants to stay until 2024, when his current contract ends, making PSG fear the departure of the gifted striker, bought 180 million euros in 2017, without receiving any compensation.
Present at the resumption of training for the champions of France at the start of the week, Mbappé also participated in the first friendly match of PSG by Luis Enrique, who arrived in the offseason to replace Christophe Galtier, even scoring a goal to consolidate the victory of the Parisians against Le Havre on Friday (2-0).
A simple respite, before a new jolt. A few hours later, the list published by PSG for the trip to Japan (July 24-August 2), where the club will notably face Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr, included a Mbappé: Ethan, Kylian’s 16-year-old little brother. But not Kylian.
The club gave no explanation for the absence of the captain of the France team (70 selections, 40 goals), but it is difficult not to see it as a new round in the communication war that the two parties have been waging for several weeks on the terms of a possible transfer.
“He can’t leave for free,” President Nasser Al-Khelaïfi said at the beginning of July in an interview with several media including AFP, referring to the player’s “verbal agreement” saying that he would not leave free.
Speaking of a “non-negotiable” case, Al-Khelaïfi even gave an ultimatum of “maximum two weeks” to Mbappé to make his decision: sign a new contract, or leave this summer. A date that corresponds approximately with the departure of the players for Japan.
A soap opera that poisons the season
In addition to the departure of one of the best players in the world, PSG, which has already lost the Argentinian Lionel Messi in June, who left for Miami after two mixed years, would indeed give up on the 100 to 200 million that the transfer of the Blues striker could bring in.
Top scorer in club history (212 goals in 260 matches, ahead of Edinson Cavani’s 200), Mbappé signed a new contract in May 2022, when he was already free to leave. But since then, the increasingly lively exchanges between the two camps have poisoned the last season and then the summer preparation of PSG.
For several months, the club and the N.7 have multiplied the spades and pressure shots, Mbappé complaining in particular of his place as “pivot” at PSG, also leaking from his entourage, his dissatisfaction with recruitment, before denying it to journalists.
The – new – elimination of PSG from the 1/8th finals of the Champions League against Bayern Munich also displeased the 2018 world champion, who then declared: “our maximum is that”.
In April, he got carried away on Instagram against the communication of the club, too exclusively centered on his person for his taste, rather than talking about it discreetly internally. “PSG is a big family but it is certainly not Kylian Saint-Germain,” he wrote.
Last June, the crisis became more serious: by letter, “Kyk’s” warned the club that it did not intend to activate the option for an additional year of contract, until 2025.
Also by mail, the club replied to him on July 3, citing “enormous prejudice” if Mbappé left free in June 2024, without any transfer compensation, and wanting to avoid “paralysis of the club”.
With their non-selection in the group for Japan, PSG seem to want to carry out their threat of an ultimatum. No guarantee that this is the last round of a long game of poker.
2023-07-21 21:09:00
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