Real Madrid have forcibly denied reports circling in the French press today that they have struck a deal with PSG to sign Kylian Mbappe.
The story emanated from journalist Baptiste Ripart, who has scored significant cred points in recent months by correctly breaking news of both Antoine Griezmann’s contract renewal and Thomas Lemar’s move to Atletico Madrid.
🚨 EXCLUSIF!! 🚨 Le Real #Madrid a conclu un accord avec #Paris pour #Mbappé. ‘Los Blancos’ paieront 272M € en 4 versements. Plus d’informations EN DIRECT après Suède-Suisse!
— Baptiste Ripart (@RipartBaptiste) July 3, 2018
As per Ripart’s bombastic announcement, Real had agreed to pay €272million to acquire Mbappe’s services just one season on from his arrival in Paris.
Of course, it wasn’t long before Los Blancos caught wind of the tittle-tattle and, so perturbed were they by the falsity of it all, the Spanish giants felt sufficiently moved to issue a ‘Comunicado Oficial’ to deny it.
Comunicado Oficial. #RealMadridhttps://t.co/6Eg30EtMvB
— Real Madrid C.F. (@realmadrid) July 4, 2018
The statement reads:
Given the information published in the last hours referring to an alleged agreement between Real Madrid CF and PSG by player Kylian Mbappe, Real Madrid says they are flatly false.
Real Madrid has not made any offers to PSG or the player and regrets the dissemination of this type of information that is not contrasted with the parties.
Real Madrid certainly don’t make a habit of quashing spurious transfer rumours, though the last time they did so in an official capacity was… yesterday, to nix chat of a €310million approach for Neymar.
It looks like PSG might have a little FFP issue coming up on the horizon and they’re trying to use Real Madrid to stir interest and open bidding in two players they now realise they wildly overpaid for over the last couple of financial years.
Maybe, just maybe.