Real Madrid have announced the signing of Kylian Mbappe.
Mbappe has signed a five-year contract with his new side. His move to Madrid is one of the most anticipated transfers in football history and comes after several years of interest from the Spanish club.
Last month, the 25-year-old France international confirmed his decision to leave PSG, where he scored 256 goals, when his contract expires on June 30 because he “needs a new challenge after seven years.”
Madrid had attempted to sign Mbappe in 2022, when the forward’s previous contract at PSG was due to expire but he instead chose to renew at the Parc des Princes. Mbappe’s extension in 2022 included a 12-month extension clause for the 2024-25 season. However, only Mbappe could trigger that extension — not PSG.
Mbappe won 15 trophies across his spell in the France capital, having initially joined on loan from Monaco in 2018, including six Ligue 1 titles. However, he did not win the Champions League at PSG — losing to Bayern Munich in the club’s only final appearance in 2019-20. He joins a Madrid side that have just won their fifth Champions League title in nine years, following Saturday’s 2-0 win over Borussia Dortmund at Wembley Stadium.
Madrid’s interest in the striker was revived this season, with The Athletic reporting in January that the Frenchman was aware of Madrid’s contractual offer.
As reported by The Athletic, senior board figures informed Madrid head coach Carlo Ancelotti ahead of the side’s Champions League last-16 first leg against RB Leipzig on February 13 that he could count on Mbappe from next season.
Mbappe informed PSG in February that he would not execute the optional additional year in his contract through to 2025 that had been included in his 2022 renewal; meaning he would leave the club at the end of the season as a free agent. Days later, the striker confirmed his decision to his PSG team-mates and head coach Luis Enrique.
• • •
Analysis from The Athletic’s PSG correspondent Peter Rutzler:
Kylian Mbappe is the best French player to have worn the PSG shirt. Arguably, he is their best of all time and perhaps their most important and influential.
Since he signed for Monaco in the summer of 2017, initially on loan and then made permanent for an eye-watering €180million (now £153.8m; $193.7m), PSG have transformed as a club. They are now an internationally recognized brand, a super club, a team who have boasted star players and Mbappe has been at the heart of it.
The relationship between PSG’s fans and their star player has not always been one of doting affection over the past seven years — a product, as L’Equipe outlined last week, of his frequent ‘near departures’. But he has been loved in Paris as a leader for club and country, the locally-born superstar who has become the face of PSG. Off-field matters have not fully diminished the respect, admiration, and indeed affection for this global superstar.
Today, he is arguably the best player in the world and he has left his mark at PSG. He has broken multiple records since he signed, aged 18. He has surpassed all that have gone before him in Paris.
He has scored the most goals for PSG both domestically and in Europe, as well as the most hat-tricks, the most ‘doubles’ and the most goals in a single game (five). He has helped France win the World Cup during his time at the club, as well as scoring in successive World Cup finals, including one hat-trick, has won the tournament’s Golden Boot, and has gone on to become France captain. He is the most prolific and consistent goalscorer the French league has seen since Jean-Pierre Papin was running riot for Marseille in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
He received the Ligue 1 Golden Boot award six times in a row — no player has done that before.
While PSG were ahead of schedule with their Champions League run this season, Mbappe will still leave without winning the biggest prize in club football — and that will always be a disappointment to him. But he leaves as probably the most significant player in the club’s history.
While Mbappe’s exit from PSG is only now official, it has not exactly been an unforeseen eventuality. Speculation about his future has been a regular soap opera.
Mbappe is not just any old player — and not only because of his talent. He has been incredibly influential. He may have insisted that the club was not ‘Kylian Saint-Germain’ in a marketing dispute last year but, at least in recent times, it is hard to escape the veracity of that description.
He is arguably the best player in the world today and losing a player of that caliber leaves a huge hole. Currently, he is the team’s top goalscorer by a sizeable margin. He has scored 43 goals in all competitions this season. The next best for PSG is Goncalo Ramos, on just 15.
PSG will have to replace those goals, but the club have already begun regeneration, moving on from their ‘galacticos’ era. Last summer they parted company with Lionel Messi and Neymar and implemented a new focus on a younger, more cohesive team, built with a longer-term focus — and clear playing philosophy — in mind.
More than €250million was spent on talent, with 13 new faces signed, plus the appointment of new head coach Luis Enrique. January saw the addition of two more youngsters in Lucas Beraldo and Gabriel Moscardo. The average age of the team has dropped dramatically.
There is the loss of an elite-level talent, but now the idea of the “club above all else”, stressed by president Nasser Al-Khelaifi last summer, may be easier to enforce. For the first time in a while, PSG will not have a player with great power and influence, beyond what is sometimes seen as healthy. This may well benefit head coach Luis Enrique.
But PSG still want to be an elite club and are set to target the likes of Victor Osimhen and Gavi this summer in a bid to fill the void.