Kylian Mbappe has PSG and Real Madrid on tenterhooks once again. It’s the same story as every summer, with the French striker once again being the master of his own destiny.
Nobody handles contracts and their intricacies quite like Mbappe and his team, led by Fayza Lamari, the player’s mother and agent, the only one who has managed to ensure that PSG is not a prison of wealth for her son.
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Now he must choose: renewal or sale. PSG or Real Madrid. Mbappe and his lawyers are pondering and the two clubs are waiting.
In Real Madrid‘s eyes, the current scenario would invite one to think now or never, if it weren’t for the fact that this situation has already happened three times before.
In 2017, when Mbappe was at Monaco and there was an agreement between Real Madrid and the Monegasque club’s owner, Dmitri Rybolovlev, for his transfer, the player made a U-turn to go to PSG.
In 2021, Los Merengues tried again, with Mbappe determined to leave, but PSG rejected all offers, the highest of which amounted to 200 million euros.
The third attempt came a year ago, with Mbappe set to become a free agent and the deal between the player and Los Blancos verbally agreed, but not signed. The end of this story is well known: he renewed and stayed at the Parc des Princes.
In 2023 the story continues, but with a completely different scenario. Now it is PSG who want to sell the player if Mbappe does not renew his contract, and Real Madrid are the ones waiting in the wings.
Mbappe, if he wants to sign for Real Madrid this summer, is the one who has to do all the work, because Real Madrid are adamant: that they won’t negotiate with Paris Saint-Germain. In this case, it must be Fayza Lamari who calls Florentino Perez with a fixed price.
Then, and only then, would Real Madrid take the steps to complete the transfer and get the player.
The price, however, should not exceed 200m euros, which is the amount that Real Madrid has in its budget for the whole operation.
At this point, the Spanish club is in no hurry. The objective, if the player is within reach, is to reduce the price of the transfer as much as possible, the same objective that Mbappe would have.
PSG, who have to put together a new team with Luis Enrique as coach and without Lionel Messi and Mbappe, the two big stars of the last two years, would prefer a sale to happen quickly.
It is not an easy scenario for the French club, who have the mission of rebuilding a team that will once again excite its fans and fight for the Champions League.
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Two key weeks for Mbappe
The ball is in Mbappe‘s court, and he is the one who has to make a decision: PSG or Real Madrid.
The player’s roadmap was not to make this decision right now, but to leave the French club in 2024.
That was the plan he drew up last summer, when he left Real Madrid jilted at the altar in favor of a PSG renewal full of conditions.
Whilst the signature was announced until 2025, the reality was rather different, with the player agreeing a deal until June 2024, but with a player option for an additional year.
This option needed to be formally exercised by the player before June 30 of 2023, however the former Monaco prodigy informed the club via a letter that he would not do that.
Nasser Al-Khelaifi is clear on this point: renewal or sale. The good news for Real Madrid is that there will be no vetoes.
Despite the bad relationship between PSG and the club, Qatar will accept the money for Mbappe without looking at where it comes from.
The deal seems relatively straightforward, with only the financial structure of Mbappe‘s loyalty bonus being an issue.
The French player still has to collect bonuses from PSG amounting to around 170m euros, plus a year’s salary worth around 70m euros. In total, 240m euros is what Mbappe has to decide to give up to sign for Real Madrid a year earlier than planned.
To this point he has been willing to bend and allow some money to drop from his grasp, but not all of it, and therein lies the issue that complicates everything.
If Mbappe runs out his contract at PSG, he gets every penny and he also gets to play for Real Madrid anyway.
It would be a great move for the player, but that’s just what the French club doesn’t want, as they don’t want to pay a player a fortune only for him to then leave for nothing.
The two scenarios for Mbappe
Right now, there are two scenarios. The first is that the player refuses to renew and that PSG push him to the exit door to Real Madrid.
Another alternative is that Mbappe and PSG sign a new contract and agree a sale in 2024. Mbappe would collect his bonuses and PSG would enjoy him for another year and know they will receive money from the transfer.
However, in such a scenario, there are two winners in PSG and Mbappe, but Real Madrid would be the obvious loser, which makes their response to such a possibility difficult to predict.
Nasser Al-Khelaifi is clear that the soap opera shouldn’t go on for more than two weeks. That is the deadline the PSG president has given Mbappe to make a decision and, if the forward doesn’t renew within that time, he will sell the player.
Mbappe is in control of his own destiny. It remains to be seen whether he favors money or sporting development. If it is the former, he will stay at PSG for at least one more year, but if it’s the latter then he will play for Los Blancos in 2023/24.