Real Madrid bid £137m for PSG forward Kylian Mbappe

The Report Desk

Published: August 26, 2021, 12:32 AM

Real Madrid bid £137m for PSG forward Kylian Mbappe

Real Madrid have made a 160m euros (£137m) bid to sign Paris St-Germain forward Kylian Mbappe.

The French World Cup winner, 22, joined PSG in 2017 in a transfer worth £165.7m and his contract expires in June 2022.

PSG sporting director Leonardo said the club would "not hold Mbappe back" but considered Real Madrid's bid to be "not sufficient".

"We consider the offer as being very far from what Kylian is worth today," he told French radio station RMC Sport.

Mbappe has scored 133 goals in 174 games for PSG and won three Ligue 1 titles and three French Cups.

"If a player wants to leave it must be under our terms. This applies not just to Kylian but to all players," Leonardo said.

"If he wants to go, we are not going to hold him back, but it is on our terms."

Real, who lost 300m euros in revenue because of Covid-19, have only signed defender David Alaba on a free transfer from Bayern Munich this summer.

However, this summer Sergio Ramos left on a free to PSG, while another high earner, Raphael Varane, was sold to Manchester United for £34m and Martin Odegaard left for Arsenal for around £30m.

Real evidently feel sufficiently confident about their finances to make an approach for one of the most highly-rated players in the world.

Leonardo said that PSG had made "two big offers" to keep Mbappe at the club and had seen the Frenchman as "the centre of the project" at the club.

"Kylian feels like leaving, this seems clear to me - our goal is to extend and keep him," Leonardo added.

"With him, we talked a lot, he always told us the same things. He always promised he wouldn't leave the club free.

"It

is less than we paid for him. But it's the way Real Madrid does it that we don't like."

It is not known how the fee would be structured.

PSG signed Argentina forward Lionel Messi earlier this month after he left Barcelona.

If Real are successful, it could trigger a number of deals before the transfer deadline at 23:00 BST on Tuesday, 31 August.

It is known Cristiano Ronaldo's future at Juventus is uncertain and PSG are thought to be interested in the Portuguese, which raises the intriguing possibility of a link-up with Messi, his rival for the world's best player for well over a decade.

Manchester City are among the clubs to have been offered Ronaldo but are not thought to be interested in a deal.

Last week both Ronaldo and Juventus boss Massimiliano Allegri denied the forward wanted to leave.

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