FootyChatter.com

Kylian Mbappe left Paris Saint-Germain for Real Madrid in 2024 Photos: Ryan Pierse/Robbie Jay Barratt/Getty Images. Design: Eamonn Dalton/The Athletic Kylian Mbappe spent seven years at Paris Saint-Germain. It is his hometown club. While there, he won six Ligue 1 titles and scored a record 256 goals. However, the relationship between Mbappe, one of the world’s greatest footballers, and PSG, the European champions, has since blown up spectacularly. Advertisement A bitter dispute over unpaid wages and bonuses saw both sides appear before a labour court in Paris on November 17. They are both claiming extraordinary sums of money. Mbappe’s legal side are seeking €263million (£230m; $309m) in total, while PSG have filed a counterclaim against Mbappe, asking for around €440m in damages. A decision on that is expected on December 16. This is the tale of how the relationship between Mbappe and PSG deteriorated to the point of a messy legal battle. Mbappe arrived at PSG from Monaco on August 31, 2017, on an initial one-year loan, before joining in a permanent €180m transfer on a four-year deal. PSG had already broken the world transfer record that summer by signing Neymar for €222m from Barcelona. Mbappe won a domestic treble in his first season before becoming one of the most recognised figures in the sport after winning the World Cup with France in the summer of 2018. In the summer of 2021, with one year left on his contract, there was an expectation that Mbappe would depart, especially after he turned down two extension offers. Leonardo, PSG’s sporting director at the time, told broadcaster RMC it seemed “clear” Mbappe wanted to leave. However, PSG rebuffed two bids from Real Madrid, and instead added more dazzle to their star-studded squad by bringing in Ballon d’Or winner Lionel Messi from Barcelona. Mbappe opted to stay in May 2022. After signing a new contract, he was paraded around the Parc des Princes holding a shirt aloft with his name and 2025 on the back. But the deal was actually a two-year contract extension until the summer of 2024, with the option of extending for a further year. In their legal arguments, shared with The Athletic, PSG claim that if Mbappe chose to stay until 2025, he would receive the same €33. 3m net annual salary and ethics bonus identical to the previous two seasons, along with a €60m extension-option bonus, a €55m gross — the amount before any taxes or deductions — loyalty bonus, and an additional €9. 5m gross bonus. Advertisement “I had the call of the homeland and of the capital city, ” he declared, in an interview with Le Parisien. Mbappe also told the New York Times he’d been encouraged to stay in Paris by Emmanuel Macron, the French president. Mbappe went on to score 41 goals the following campaign, landing another Ligue 1 title, but things turned sour the next summer. In their legal arguments, PSG said they received a letter from Mbappe on June 12, 2023, informing the club he didn’t want to exercise his option to extend for another year. They claimed that the letter was backdated to July 15, 2022, just two months after he had signed his contract extension. In a club statement, shared with The Athletic, PSG claimed this was evidence Mbappe had “acted disloyally by concealing, for nearly 11 months, his decision not to extend his contract, thus depriving the club of any possibility of organising a transfer”. At the November 17 hearing, Delphine Verheyden, Mbappe’s lawyer, said the letter was sent in the interests of transparency, to make it clear he wasn’t going to extend for an extra year, as reported by RMC. Mbappe’s legal team didn’t respond to further questions when asked by The Athletic. That summer, Mbappe turned down the chance to join Al Hilal in Saudi Arabia, despite PSG giving him permission to speak to them following a €300m bid in July 2023. He favoured a move to Real Madrid. Eager to avoid losing Mbappe for nothing the following summer, he was placed on the transfer list in the summer of 2023 and excluded from PSG’s pre-season tour to Japan. Mbappe was also omitted from PSG’s season opener against Lorient on August 12. The day after that 0-0 draw, PSG claimed a deal had been reached between the two sides. PSG claimed Mbappe initiated the agreement in a letter sent on August 11. In this letter, PSG claim that Mbappe offered to reduce (by €55m gross) the bonuses due for the 2023-24 season, as long as he was reinstated in the PSG squad. The deferred payment was only payable if he remained at the club — he would not receive it if he left on a free transfer in 2024. Advertisement A meeting was held the next day, and PSG say they struck an agreement on August 13. Two options were set out under that deal, according to PSG. The first involved Mbappe extending his contract for the 2024-25 season, allowing the club to bank a transfer fee of €180m. The second was that, if he chose not to extend, he would hand back various financial entitlements to compensate the club for a free transfer in the summer of 2024. In their statement, PSG said this was done “to preserve the club’s financial stability after the exceptional investment made”. However, Thomas Clay, one of Mbappe’s lawyers, told a press conference on April 10, 2025, that it was a “fairy tale” to suggest any agreement had been reached in August 2023 between PSG and Mbappe, as reported by Le Monde. “The club are not above the law, and the law is on the player’s side, ” Clay added. According to PSG’s legal arguments, the player’s statements suggested he was still considering extending his contract at the start of the January 2024 transfer window after he had been reinstated into the side. For example, he told media members in the mixed zone after PSG’s 2-0 victory against Toulouse in that month’s Trophee des Champions final (France’s Super Cup) that he was still considering what to do. “I have not yet made my decision, ” he said on January 3. “But with the agreement I made with the president this summer, regardless of my choice, we have managed to protect all parties and preserve the serenity of the club for the challenges to come, which remains the most important. ” The January window shut with Mbappe’s future still unclear. However, sources told The Athletic on February 15 that Mbappe had informed PSG he would leave that summer. On May 10, he publicly confirmed he was leaving on a free transfer that summer. Advertisement Three days later, PSG said they sent a letter to Mbappe’s legal team explaining they were applying the second option of the August 13 agreement. According to their legal arguments, this involved not paying Mbappe his €36. 6m gross signing bonus due at the end of February 2024, as well as suspending payments from April 2024 (totalling €17. 25m) until the end of his contract on June 30, 2024. In response, Mbappe’s legal team sent PSG a letter on May 31 demanding the club pay the striker what they said he was owed. In their view, PSG felt this went against the “gentlemen’s agreement” they had agreed “in good faith” in that August 13 meeting, which they reminded Mbappe of in a letter on June 10. Mbappe’s legal team are adamant that no evidence of any agreement has ever been proven. They added that if there had been an agreement, it would have required a formal amendment. On June 18, Mbappe’s lawyers again sent a formal notice to the club to pay what they said the France captain was entitled to. Mbappe would go on to leave PSG on a free transfer when his contract expired before joining Real Madrid. Verheyden, Mbappe’s lawyer, told L’Equipe that the striker is the “real victim” in the dispute. She added that PSG “will finally understand that under French law, contracts must be respected and what is owed must be paid”. Mbappe’s legal team told The Athletic how he was seeking the application of the law, like any employee. They explained how the hearing on November 17 focused primarily on the part of his claim that related to non-payment of Mbappe’s wages and bonuses for April, May and June 2024. They said Mbappe was owed about €55m gross, which included his bonuses and wages for April, May, and June 2024, plus some extras his contract added on. This would take it to €60. 9m gross in total. Advertisement On April 10 this year, Mbappe obtained a court order to freeze PSG’s accounts. That came after Mbappe’s legal team held a press conference to say “a decision has been taken, this time to go on the attack”. However, a month later, PSG successfully overturned it and had their accounts unfrozen. In November, Mbappe took the matter to the appeal court, which this week dismissed his case and ordered him to pay the legal costs as well as a €3, 000 payment to PSG. Mbappe’s legal team told The Athletic that no evidence of a waiver agreement had been provided by the club, despite their public statements. A legal source, with close working knowledge of the case but who asked to remain anonymous to protect relationships, told The Athletic that PSG accept they didn’t formally sign a document, but there was an agreement in place. They said PSG wanted to take a firm stance to set a precedent and to ensure such a thing did not happen again. They added how it was a case of the new PSG taking a stand against its past, which was all about too much player power. Mbappe’s legal team told The Athletic that his fixed-term contract should legally count as a permanent one, which would automatically entitle him to things such as notice pay and statutory redundancy compensation. In response, PSG said “the request to reclassify his contract as a permanent contract… is completely without legal basis”. In total, Mbappe’s legal team are seeking €263m from PSG. He is also pursuing claims for unpaid bonuses, back pay, ethics bonuses, undeclared work, psychological harassment, unfair dismissal, and safety breaches. In their statement, PSG said they “reject all accusations of harassment or pressure”. They also pointed out how Mbappe had been involved in more than 90 per cent of matches during the 2023-2024 season. Advertisement Meanwhile, PSG are seeking a total of around €440m in counterclaims against Mbappe. They are asking for damages, largely related to financial losses and harm caused by alleged breaches of contract and the missed chance to cash in on a hefty transfer fee. Responding to that, Frederique Cassereau, one of Mbappe’s lawyers, told L’Equipe: “It’s the first time in my 30 years of professional experience that I’ve seen an employer claim almost double the amount claimed by an employee. It’s absolutely stratospheric. ” In their statement, PSG said they wanted to seek “recognition of the significant damages suffered by the club as a result of Mr Mbappe’s serious breaches of his legally binding contractual commitments and the most basic principles of good faith and loyalty”. They added how Mbappe had “continuously attacked the club at every opportunity… a regrettable situation for the player himself, as well as for French football as a whole”. They went on to say this was “a matter of good faith, honesty, upholding values and respect for the Parisian institution and its supporters. At the same time, Paris Saint-Germain continues to build on the most successful season in its history, based on solidarity, hard work, team spirit and the precedence of the club over any individual”. A decision on that case is expected on December 16, although either side would have the right to appeal to the Paris Court of Appeal. Running alongside this main legal dispute is one relating to an Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) decision in the case. In September 2024, the LFP ordered PSG to pay Mbappe the €55m in salary and bonuses he was allegedly entitled to, a decision that was upheld by their appeals panel a month later. But PSG challenged this ruling, and instead filed a case against the LFP in the Paris judicial court, arguing the LFP did not have the authority to decide the matter because a civil court case was already underway. Advertisement Following this, both the LFP and the French Football Federation (FFF) said they could no longer adjudicate the dispute, leaving it to be settled in the judicial system. A preliminary hearing for that has now been set for February 23, 2026, as first reported by AFP. That means this long-running dispute is going to rumble on for some time yet. Tom Burrows is a football news writer for The Athletic UK. He was previously a staff editor for three years. Prior to that, he worked on news and investigations for national newspapers. Follow Tom on Twitter @TBurrows16