Transfer talk: Who is most likely to sign Kylian Mbappe for crazy money?

Ollie Irish

18th, February 2021

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Even before his devastating hat-trick against Barcelona at the Nou Camp on Tuesday, Kylian Mbappe was the most valuable commodity in football. But after the Frenchman made Messi look human, his value is going to the moon.

According to transfermarkt.com, Mbappe is worth €180m, which would get you a couple of Joshua Kimmichs, or three Phil Fodens. It’s a whopping €52m more than the second-most valuable player on their list (PSG team-mate Neymar), which just shows how he is in a class of his own. The scary thing is, I don’t think that valuation has been updated since the hat-trick against Barca. That one game alone may have pushed his value close to the €200m mark, which in the current economic climate would be a staggering fee.

Whilst Mbappe is doing just fine – employed by a very wealthy club that reached the Champions League final last season – there is still the expectation that he will want to play for one of Europe’s historically big clubs. But which one?

Mbappe only has one year left on his contract, so he could leave PSG in the summer of 2022 for nothing. It’s not like PSG need the money, but it would be beyond careless if they did not capitalise on their main asset before then – if they can’t convince Mbappe to stay in Paris on a new, improved deal, that is.

Liverpool, Man City, Bayern and Juventus have all been mentioned as potential suitors, but when you look more closely, there’s not a lot of substance to such talk. Liverpool are not a spending club, City have never spent close to three figures on a new player, and Bayern don’t like to splash the cash either. Juve could offload Cristiano Ronaldo and seek to replace him with Mbappe, but again, that would take some financial scheming on a massive scale.

Real Madrid are warm favourites to be Mbappe’s next club, and it’s been that way for at least a year. In Madrid, Mbappe is seen as the player to kick-start a new period of galactico-driven success. The dream would be Mbappe and Erling Haaland in tandem up front, but it remains to be seen if Real can find the cash to make that happen.

I suspect Mbappe will stay at PSG next season, rather than seek to jump ship before his contract expires. He’s a god in Paris, after all, and PSG definitely look capable of winning the Champions League this year, copying Liverpool’s recent pattern of being losing finalists/winners in consecutive seasons.

Posted in PSG, Transfers & Rumours

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  1. Jake says:

    Ollie, I click this story solely to make my points in comments. But, I read what you wrote first, just to find out you made all the points I wanted to. So here I am making useless comments anyway, kudos.

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