When a player who scored a hat-trick in the World Cup final just over a year ago is available on a free transfer, there should be a phalanx of suitors lining up to acquire his signature.
The phone should be ringing constantly with people wanting to negotiate for Kylian Mbappe, the player with the most goals and assists combined in Europe this season – even when operating at a leisurely pace.
Instead, remarkably, there is one realistically interested party – and even they aren’t fully convinced.
What’s more, the most talented player and top goalscorer in Paris Saint-Germain’s history will leave with the majority of supporters ambivalent to his departure. He should be exiting a hero with work on a statue having begun, not out the side door to zero fanfare.
There are myriad reasons why PSG are almost relieved to be finally getting rid of Mbappe, after the 25-year-old forward confirmed on Thursday he will be leaving for pastures new in the summer. One of the main protagonists in his fall from favour, however – across the whole of France, not just in Paris – is his rather pugnacious agent.
A loose-lipped representative, one whom clubs dread having to deal with, is nothing new among elite footballers. But Mbappe’s agent has an additional edge to her – she is his mum.
“Anyone who has had to deal with her knows she’s the worst advisor in world football,” one intermediary based in Paris tells i.
“Even Florentino Perez [persident of Real Madrid] is sick of her. And that is saying something.”
As much as we believe the lure of the Premier League to be irresistible to all, Mbappe is almost certainly not heading to our shores, largely because even the world’s richest league cannot afford him.
Despite some experts labelling him Arsenal’s new Thierry Henry-in-waiting, with Financial Fair Play regulators currently scrutinising every penny clubs spend, any team would have to rip up any semblance of a wage structure, or lay off half their playing staff, to fund Mbappe’s wages. Fayza Lamari drives the hardest of bargains for her one and only client.
Real Madrid have been Mbappe’s dream since he was just out of nappies. Posters of Cristiano Ronaldo in the white of the record European Cup-winners were plastered all over a young Mbappe’s walls in his suburban Paris home he shared with his mum-turned-agent.
Madrid planned to build their next dynasty around Mbappe, and his astronomical wage demands – he is earning €200m (£171m) a year in Paris including bonuses – were no stumbling block.
Except Madrid have their prince ready to spearhead their drive to the top of European football again. Asked by Spanish sports newspaper Marca whether Madrid should bow to Mbappe’s – well Lamari’s – wage demands, 65 per cent said he should not earn more than Jude Bellingham.
“She has been overheard saying ‘we’re going to bleed them dry, they’re going to pay’ just after the Champions League final loss to Bayern Munich [in 2020],” another insider said.
“She’s got a preoccupation for money, meaning every club in the world doesn’t want to deal with her. Her son scored a hat-trick in the World Cup final and yet the majority of France don’t like him.”
Mbappe became one of the highest-paid athletes in the world in 2022 when he agreed to snub an offer from Real and accept a salary worth a reported €72m (£61.6m) to extend his contract at PSG. The negotiations gave perhaps the truest indication of Lamari’s motivations.
“There is no guilt, no shame,” she told French TV programme Envoye Spccial last month. “If we could have taken €10bn, we would have taken it because it’s the system that demands it.”
Lamari has kept her client very much in the vehicular, for the same reason, every year. In 2021, Mbappe was strongly linked with a move to Real but stayed in Paris; in 2022, Mbappe was again linked with a move to the Spanish capital but stayed and signed a new contract, before being unveiled on the pitch at Parc des Princes with an “Mbappe 2025” shirt to a hero’s welcome.
Since then, there have been leaked letters saying he wants out, a move to Saudi Arabia almost materialising, the player being banned from the club’s pre-season tour, his entourage, lead by Lamari, insisting Mbappe will sit on the bench for a season just to get his free transfer to Madrid – and £160m signing-on fee.
Then there was yet another U-turn, where he agreed to sacrifice some of his mega-earnings to get back in PSG’s good books and start banging the goals in again for the Ligue 1 leaders.
“Every year, or even every six months now, the whole of France becomes the Kylian Mbappe stay-or-go, led by Fayza,” an insider adds. “And this is Paris’s Olympic year, where the focus should be on happier things. France is done with Kylian Mbappe and his mum.”
France is about to get its wish. Club sources are adamant this represents the final departure from the previous galactico era, where the likes of Lionel Messi, Neymar, Sergio Ramos and Mbappe could effectively do what they liked.
PSG had the youngest side in the Champions League knock-out rounds this season, with much excitement revolving around 17-year-old Warren Zaire-Emery especially. The era of individualism, they believe, is over. Mbappe has been the inspiration for many of the young players, but at the peak of his powers he still divides opinion.
The move to Madrid will almost certainly happen – despite Lamari doing her best to stir up Perez, a figure normally doing the agitation himself. Real have coveted Mbappe for too long to give up on him now. A compromise will be found, given the lack of other viable options.
It could all have gone so much more smoothly and should, for a player of Mbappe’s other-worldly talent and goalscoring record, be signed, sealed and delivered already. It would have been, if not for one reason, anyone you speak to around PSG points out: don’t have your mother as your agent.
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