Mbappé-PSG, chronology of a 55 million euro dispute

The saga between PSG and its former star is not over. The settlement of Mbappé’s last bonuses and salaries by the club should be decided by the industrial tribunal.

This is a divorce that will, as is often the case, be settled before the judges. The LFP legal committee is calling on PSG to pay the 55 million euros claimed by Kylian Mbappé within eight days. How the 25-year-old striker and the capital club arrived at this situation, franceinfo explains everything to you.

With one year to go until the end of his contract, in June 2023, Kylian Mbappé sent a letter via his advisors – dated July 15, 2022, six weeks after his extension with the club – in which he explained that he would not activate the optional year of his contract.

We learned on July 21, 2023 that Kylian Mbappé will not be traveling to Japan, where Paris Saint-Germain is scheduled to stay for a promotional tour. The reason? “There has been no change in his contractual situation.”we were told at the club, which believed it knew at the time that the striker had already agreed to join Real Madrid on a free transfer in June 2024. Which has never been proven.

Kylian Mbappé finally returned to the professional group 24 days later, on August 13. After weeks of discussions, notably by email, an agreement was finally reached between Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, the Parisian president, and Kylian Mbappé, following a meeting between the two men the day before, in the presence of coach Luis Enrique and sporting director Luis Campos.

This agreement was only revealed in January 2024, by the main interested party at the end of the Champions Trophy between Paris Saint-Germain and Toulouse (3-0). “The agreement made with the president [du PSG] Nasser Al-Khelaïfi this summer, no matter my decision, we managed to protect all parties and preserve the serenity of the club for the challenges to come”. A tacit, oral agreement, but which, according to Paris Saint-Germain, has legal value. With email exchanges to support it, and the presence of witnesses.

The sports management of Radio France had, in detail, the agreement reached between the player and the Qatari leader. In the case where Kylian Mbappé agreed to activate his additional year of contract, until June 2025, the latter would have received a bonus of 82 million euros for the 2024/2025 season. The club would have thus agreed to sell him at the purchase price – 180 million euros to AS Monaco in 2017 -, and thus recovered 98 million euros.

Second scenario, Kylian Mbappé refuses to activate his additional year. He gives up several of his bonuses, for an amount of 55 million euros gross (30 million euros loyalty bonus + 25 million signing bonus), or approximately 68 million euros loaded. A differential of 20 million euros exists but the two parties are close to an agreement.

A month later, in February, Kylian Mbappé told the club and its president Nasser Al-Khelaïfi that he would leave the club for free at the end of the season. The French striker saw his playing time reduced and, above all, several bonuses and his salaries for the months of April, May and June were not paid to him.

A few days before the end of his contract, the capital club received a letter from the player’s lawyer – from which we were able to read some extracts – in which she regrets “violent intimidation and pressure maneuvers […] financial maneuvers, an attempt at extortion” or even “a methodical enterprise of demolition of its image”wanting “to turn public opinion against him”.

The 2018 world champion, who believes he is within his rights, decided to contact the LFP legal committee, as well as the French Football Federation, last August. “These requested sums resulted from the employment contract registered and approved by the LFP for the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 seasons”explains Kylian Mbappé’s lawyer, Delphine Verheyden, to World. “My client simply wants his work to be paid at this stage, as should be the case for any other player in his situation, and for any employee who has finished their fixed-term contract.”

For Paris Saint-Germain, the various emails exchanged, the club’s response via Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, in the presence of witnesses, are considered an agreement. Which the new Real Madrid player refutes. PSG, for its part, believes it was duped by the striker. Despite signing his new contract in May 2022 with the biggest salary in football history and an investment, since his signing in 2017, valued at nearly a billion euros, the player wrote a letter six weeks later indicating that he would not activate his additional year. A letter that PSG only became aware of in June 2023.

The legal committee and its 18 members proposed that mediation be carried out. Paris Saint-Germain responded favorably, but Kylian Mbappé did not. The dispute will certainly be settled before the industrial tribunal, because the legal committee, even if it orders PSG to pay the sums due, is not authorized to force the club to pay.

“In light of the limits of the legal competence of the LFP commission to take a complete decision on this matter, it must now be brought before another jurisdiction”PSG indicates in its press release. Indeed, the legal commission of the LFP “cannot replace the industrial tribunal, since in France, everything relating to labor law is a matter of public policy”, popularizes Christophe Bertrand, lawyer at the Bertrand firm. “In the event of non-compliance with a decision of one of the League’s committees, continues the lawyer, There may be disciplinary sanctions against the club. But this mechanism has its limits since the subject falls under the jurisdiction of the industrial tribunal.”