Selling Neymar to Al-Hilal, PSG brought back Kylian Mbappe

The most dramatic transfer story of this summer in European football, connected with the fate of two PSG superstars, received an equally dramatic continuation. The Brazilian Neymar did indeed leave the Parisian club, going, like many other celebrities, to Saudi Arabia: Al-Hilal agreed to pay € 90 million for him. But the Frenchman Kylian Mbappe seemed determined to escape from PSG and was in conflict with the team, unexpectedly returned to it. And this return provoked the emergence of a number of mutually exclusive versions trying to explain it.

For the past few hours, PSG have been in the spotlight in European football for the umpteenth time this summer. Within a very short period, two high-profile events took place related to the superstars of the attack of the French giant, who had already said goodbye to his living legend – those who left to the American “Inter Miami” Lionel Messi. And it is very difficult to determine which one is louder.

It’s clearer, or something, it was the one whose hero turned out to be Neymar. Last week it became known that the Brazilian notified the leadership of PSG that he had firmly decided to leave it in the near future. And on Monday it turned out that he put the plan into practice extremely quickly. True, the buyer was not the European grand Barcelona, ​​in which Neymar experienced in his youth, apparently, the best segment of his career and which in 2017 sold him to the Parisians for the still remaining record amount of € 222 million, although it seems that the Brazilian dreamed of moving to the Catalan club, and the representative of the championship of Saudi Arabia. However, this did not particularly surprise any of the experts.

Saudi clubs in the course of the current transfer campaign are showing monstrous activity and aggressiveness, poaching prominent European players. And Neymar went to the most active and aggressive among them.

Before him, Al-Hilal acquired a whole squad of well-known players – such as Kalidou Koulibaly, Sergei Milinkovic-Savic, Ruben Neves. The most recent of the acquisitions was Malcolm, who played for Zenit. Al-Hilal invested more in the top scorer of the previous Russian championship than in any of its newcomers – € 60 million, almost a third of the total selection costs. But now Neymar has surpassed the bar set by his compatriot. All the major media resources agree that the base value of the deal for the PSG forward, which can still be increased due to various bonuses, amounted to €90 million.

They are also in solidarity in explaining the reasons that ensured such an easy parting with the French flagship, once a key figure for him. The effectiveness of Neymar, who has already gone into his fourth decade, has clearly decreased in the past two or three years.

And the BBC points to his trauma. Injuries, mostly to the ankles, kept the Brazilian out of action last season. They ruined the Qatari World Cup for him and forced him to miss the end of the French championship. Game problems have transformed into problems in Neymar’s relationship with PSG fans. This is primarily about the May incident. Then a large group of club fans came to the footballer’s house. They expressed dissatisfaction with the game of the 31-year-old striker in an extremely harsh manner, demanding that he “get out” of the team.

After the end of the season, PSG, which can’t transform the huge cash injections into success in the Champions League, appointed Luis Enrique to replace the sacked Christophe Galtier as coach. The Spanish specialist immediately initiated a radical personnel restructuring of the club. In two months, it was replenished by almost a dozen players with a total value of more than €150 million, both well-known – like Luc Hernandez, Gonzalo Ramos, Milan Skrinyar, Marco Asensio, Ousmane Dembele – and not very well-known. It was obvious that Neymar, who had surrendered, did not fit too well into Enrique’s concept, aimed at the future. In this situation, the urgent sale of the Brazilian, who had lost its former sporting and commercial appeal, was an ideal way out for both parties. Moreover, if you believe Sky Sports, and the sour Neymar will earn in Al-Hilal crazy money by any measure – € 150 million a year. His salary at PSG was six times more modest.

The second story is much more complicated. On Sunday evening, that is, in fact, apparently, just making out the final agreements regarding Neymar with Al-Hilal, PSG published statementregarding its other leader, Kylian Mbappe. It said that “after very constructive and positive negotiations” the top scorer of the French championship and the World Cup in Qatar “joined” the club’s first team and trains with it.

There is nothing strange in the fact that this news was perceived both in France and abroad as almost a shock. It’s all about the background.

The phenomenon, which the French press has already become accustomed to calling a “soap opera” starring Kylian Mbappé and PSG President Nasser Al-Khelaifi, matured back in 2022. At the end of the next season, the leading publications confidently announced the transfer of Mbappe from the Parisian team to Real Madrid in the status of a free agent, received after the expiration of the contract.

However, instead of moving to the Spanish club, Kylian Mbappe unexpectedly announced the signing of a new contract with PSG until 2024.

The disruption of the deal, according to various sources, was the result of the extremely energetic actions of the two presidents – club president Nasser al-Khelaifi and French President Emmanuel Macron, Mbappe’s personal fan, who persuaded him to stay at home, as well as, of course, financial incentives. It is believed that PSG, in order to keep the striker, promised him additional payments in the form of bonuses ranging from €150 million to €300 million on an annual salary of €100 million.

And in June, it turned out that at the end of last season, representatives of Kylian Mbappé sent a notification to the PSG management that the striker would not renew his contract in 2024. Various sources interpreted such an act in the same way: as a recognition of the 24-year-old Mbappe, who, unlike Neymar, was in his prime, had an acute desire to finally really leave the rich, but not very effective and boring project, and also as a signal for PSG to urgently start negotiations to sell it already within the current transfer window. Otherwise, the club risked again holding out until the moment when the striker becomes a free agent and will be free to go anywhere without compensation.

Further, the “soap opera” was overgrown with details. Nasser Al-Khelaifi no longer concealed his annoyance at the behavior of Kylian Mbappe, publicly during the presentation of Luis Enrique putting forward something similar to an ultimatum to the football player: if he wants to stay at PSG for next season, he must prolong the contract in advance. And the list of clubs to which respected sources attributed interest in Kylian Mbappe has ceased to be limited to Real Madrid and has increased significantly. Let’s say that the same Al-Hilal hit him, raising the price of a player to an astronomical €300 million.

Moreover, it seemed that PSG no longer counted on Kylian Mbappe, although he insisted that he was going to work out the contract with him to the end, remaining for another season.

He did not take him on a commercial tour of Japan, the football player’s photo disappeared from the club website, and then Mbappe missed the match that the Parisians started in the next national championship, having played on Saturday with a draw – 0:0 – with Lorient. And suddenly there was a strange turn in the confrontation.

He provoked the appearance in French publications – L’Equipe, Francetvinfo – Mutually exclusive versions about what lies at the heart of “reconciliation”. One is that Kylian Mbappe suddenly adjusted his ideas about the usefulness of an alliance with PSG and agreed to extend the contract, for example, on the condition that they try to sell him again in the summer of 2024. And the acquaintance with Luis Enrique, who gave the striker confidence that the club is ready to progress, as well as the arrival of Mbappe’s friends from the French national team – Luc Hernandez, Ousmane Dembele, could have pushed the player to such a step.

According to another version, PSG management is “bluffing”. In other words, having formally “reintegrated” the football player into the club, in reality, he simply made it clear to potential hunters for Kylian Mbappe – Real Madrid, Al-Hilal, that if they drag the rubber in the hope of bringing down the price of a football player, they risk him forever lose. So it is better to make concrete and generous official proposals in the coming days.

Alexey Dospekhov