French soccer player Kylian Mbappe on Friday confirmed that he is to leave French champions Paris Saint-Germain at the end of the season, with Real Madrid widely expected to be his next destination.
The announcement brings an end to a prolific association with his hometown team, which began when he signed from AS Monaco in 2017 in a deal worth 180 million euros (US$194 million).
“I wanted to announce to you all that it’s my last year at Paris Saint-Germain. I will not extend and the adventure will come to an end in a few weeks,” Mbappe, 25, said in a video posted on social media. “I will play my last game at the Parc des Princes on Sunday.”
Photo: Instagram/@k.mbappe via AFP
PSG have already secured the Ligue 1 title, their 10th in the past 12 seasons, and the Qatar-owned club is to pick up the trophy after today’s game against Toulouse, which will be their last of the campaign on home turf.
Luis Enrique’s side were eliminated from the UEFA Champions League by Borussia Dortmund in the semi-finals on Tuesday when a 1-0 loss in the second leg at home sealed a surprise 2-0 aggregate defeat.
It means Mbappe would be denied the send-off he had hoped for in the UEFA Champions League final at Wembley on June 1 and will end his seven-year spell at PSG without ever having won Europe’s elite club competition.
Photo:AFP
Mbappe informed PSG privately in February of his intention to depart when his contract expires at the end of the current campaign.
The 2018 FIFA World Cup winner had never confirmed publicly he was leaving, though, far less said where he will be going next, but it appears certain that he is bound for Real Madrid.
“It’s a lot of emotions, many years where I had the chance and the great honor to be a member of the biggest French club, one of the best in the world,” Mbappe said.
“It allowed me to arrive here, to have my first experience in a club with a lot of pressure, to grow as a player of course, by being alongside some of the best in history, some of the greatest champions,” he added. “It’s hard and I never thought it would be this difficult to announce that... but I think I needed this, a new challenge, after seven years.”
Mbappe’s arrival in the capital as a teenager in 2017 came after he had helped AS Monaco win the league title.
After initially joining PSG on loan, his transfer fee became — and still is — the second-largest in soccer history.
It came just weeks after PSG paid a world-record 222 million euros to sign Neymar from Barcelona.
PSG have dominated French soccer since their 2011 Qatari takeover, but despite also adding Lionel Messi to their line-up for two seasons, European success has remained tantalizingly out of reach for a club that has spent billions on some of the world’s best players.
The closest they came was the 2020 UEFA Champions League final defeat by Bayern Munich, when PSG academy graduate Kingsley Coman scored the winning goal against his former club.
The defeat to Dortmund this week ruled out the prospect of Mbappe facing his likely future employers, 14-time European champions Real Madrid, in this year’s final.
Mbappe did not find the net in that tie, but has scored 43 goals in all competitions this season, with 26 of those coming in Ligue 1.
He would still hope to add to his club-record tally of 255 goals for PSG and win another medal in the Coupe de France final on May 25 — Mbappe has so far won six Ligue 1 titles, three French Cups and the now defunct French League Cup twice in his seven years at his hometown team.
After today’s game, PSG would complete their league campaign with away matches at OGC Nice and at relegation-threatened Metz, before Mbappe wraps up his career with the club in that Cup final in Lille. Mbappe was frozen out at the start of the campaign with the club putting pressure on him to sign a new deal or agree to be sold rather than simply run down the last year of his contract.
His relationship with PSG manager Luis Enrique has also come under the spotlight since he told the Qatar-owned club of his plans to leave earlier this year. Now the worst-kept secret is out and Mbappe’s departure follows that of Messi and Neymar at the end of last season, which left PSG in a period of transition, but the loss of the France captain is an even greater blow.
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