Superstar striker Kylian Mbappé, who has extended at Paris SG until 2025, has promised not to encroach on the club’s sporting direction. “I remain a football player, anchored in a collective, I will not go beyond this function, I will not go beyond my function as a player,” said the world champion at a press conference. , Monday, May 23, alongside its president Nasser al-Khelaïfi. If the Bondynois chose to stay in Paris rather than go to Real Madrid, it is for purely sporting and not financial reasons.
Indeed, if Kylian Mbappé rejected the advances of the Madrid club, at the risk of alienating a good part of Spain, it is because he made sure that in Paris, he would be “the cornerstone of the project”, a formula already accepted by Al-Khelaïfi. “Money is not the most important thing for Kylian, it’s the sportsman,” said President Nasser al-Khelaïfi, refusing to specify the terms of Mbappé’s new contract.
For his part, the striker admitted to having consulted Emmanuel Macron on the subject, appreciating the “good advice” of the French president, who wanted the striker to “stay” in Paris. “We traded quite a few times. He wanted me to stay, that’s part of the negotiations,” the French champion said in an interview with several media, including Agence France-Presse, after the press conference at the Parc des Princes. And to add: “He is one of the various people I have spoken to about football! This is where we see that football has changed and that it has an important place in society. »
To rebuild, PSG found its keystone, but wanted to clarify things in the crowded amphitheater of the Parc des Princes. Hundreds of journalists from around the world took their places for the epilogue of this long mercato soap opera, which concluded on Saturday. “This choice is a very strong sign, we are keeping the best player in the world,” Parisian President Nasser al-Khelaïfi savored at the start of this highly anticipated press conference, two days after the announcement of the player’s extension.
All smiles, accompanied by his family and his entourage (his father Wilfried Mbappé, his mother Fayza Lamari, his brother Ethan, his lawyer Delphine Verheyden), Kylian Mbappé was able to savor the end of this period of uncertainty. “A difficult decision”, he acknowledged, while ensuring that he “always wanted to take refuge in my football”. The French international also evacuated the subject of image rights, saying that the conflict arising from his refusal to participate in a sponsorship operation in the selection in March was only a “small misunderstanding” which would be “settled very quick “. It remains to be seen who will be the next PSG coach, among the “short-list” already rumored in the press (Zidane, Motta, Martinez, Conte, Galtier) and how the workforce will be rebuilt, with in particular the question of the departure of undesirables with high salaries but low performance (Draxler, Kurzawa, Icardi, Herrera, Rico…).