A year ago, with a packed Parc des Princes, Nasser Al Khelaïfi announced between cheers a piece of news that represented a coup d’état for PSG: Kylian Mbappé renewed until 2025. In the first instance, the forward would remain linked to the Parisians for three seasons, but it was not like that, since what was signed was a two-year contract extension, with the option of another supplementary one that could only be executed by the player.
The clause, which expires on July 31, could not be executed by Kylian Mbappé. According to information from L’Équipe, Bondy’s crack has no intention right now to renew with PSG. The current leader of Ligue 1 has wasted the first year of his star’s new contract, breaking the promises that Al Khelaïfi made to convince him to continue in Paris and leaving his future up in the air.
PSG can experience the same situation that it experienced last year. If Mbappé does not execute the renewal clause, the Parisian team will have to settle directly with the environment and with the striker, some negotiations that are supposed to be intense, since the club, governed by Qatar, did the impossible in 2022 for him to end up stamping his signature renewaleven interceding Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic, in the talks.
The ups and downs of the French international throughout the season have marked the future of his decision not to renew. In August, as soon as the season began, the “Penalty-Gate” took place, a dispute between Neymar and Mbappé that led to internal tension at PSG. Ney found out that his teammate had not opposed his sale in the summer and decided to take a penalty against Montpellier, on matchday 2, when Galtier had designated the talented Bondy as the main shooter.
The problems were piling up. In September, before a Champions League match against Benfica, the bomb exploded: Mbappé wanted to leave in January because he felt betrayed by Nasser Al Khelaïfi. The president promised him an ambitious, winning project with sporting certainties that was not consummated in the summer. The player, also unhappy with his role as ‘pivot’, that is, without a reference in attack that would give him more freedom on the field, threatened to leave the club, which triggered an internal crisis that reached its culmination with information from Mediapart in which it was ensured that PSG had created false accounts to rebuke Mbappé and to pressure him into renewing it.
weeks later, L’Équipe reported that PSG had not paid the footballer his corresponding salary, which was understood as a tug of war between both parties to see who had more strength. Suspicions that the divorce was inevitable were appeased after the World Cup in Qatar. Both parties decided to put the common good first and, although the season has been a disappointment, especially after the elimination in the Champions League round of 16, right now there is not the same climate of tension as at the beginning of the season.
However, Mbappé returned to the fray in April, after PSG launched a season ticket campaign with him headlining without the corresponding permission from the player. In a post on social media, the French international reiterated that the club was not “Kylian Saint Germain” and that image rights were a fundamental right for any elite athlete.
Kylian Mbappé will be free to negotiate with the team he wants from January. The fact that he does not execute his renewal clause does not mean, at all, that he is going to leave in the summer, nor does it mean that in 2024 he will leave as a free agent. PSG is not going to give up, just as they did not last year until they managed to convince the striker. However, the scenario now is very different. If the club cannot surround him with a competitive team that can aspire to compete in the Champions League, his departure in 2024 will be a reality.