The secrets of the fight between Mbappe and PSG with Real Madrid in the background

The last few months of Kylian Mbappe at PSG were among the most tumultuous. Practically since the end of the World Cup in Qatar, the tug-of-war between the striker and the club's top management, in particular with Nasser Al-Khelaifi, was a constant until his departure last summer to Real Madrid. A series of episodes that has been reviewed today by the newspaper L'Equipe.

The relationship between the president and the star began to crack in the summer of 2023, when Kylian sent a letter to PSG informing them that he would not activate the clause in his contract that allowed him to extend his contract until 2025. In other words, he was putting the French club between a rock and a hard place: either they sold him that same summer or the following summer he could leave for free (as eventually happened).

After being left out of the tour of Japan before the start of the 2023-24 campaign, the striker eventually ended up playing relatively normally... until February 2024, when he asked for a meeting with Al-Khelaifi to tell him, again, that he had no intention of extending his contract in Paris. After this meeting, according to L'Equipe,Al-Khelaifi is said to have warned him that he would not sign for Real Madrid. The world champion's reaction was simply to laugh at such a statement.

After this, Mbappe's communication was leaked to the media, while he still did not speak publicly, but in the background, and always according to the French newspaper, Al-Khelaifi tried to prevent him from playing with PSG in the last months of his contract.

Luis Enrique's refusal and the Ethan chapter

The president spoke to Luis Enrique Martinez, but the Asturian refused to leave his star player in the stands for the following months, although he did reduce his minutes quite drastically in the following matches until the end of the season.

The tension could be cut in recent months to such an extent that Kylian Mbappe declined a meeting with Al-Khelaifi at his home when the season was already coming to an end. He did not want to, according to L'Equipe, find himself in a similar situation to that of 2022, when he ended up renewing his contract by surprise when everything seemed to be on track for him to wear white.

And the last episode took place in May, during the last day of Ligue 1 against Toulouse, when the president allegedly told Luis Enrique not to call up Ethan Mbappe, Kylian's brother, again. The striker, in the dressing room, saw him crying, which led to a tense dispute between the player and the president, in which he stressed that he would not forgive him for the 55 million euros that, months earlier, he had agreed not to receive and for which they are still immersed in lawsuits.