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French footballer Kylian Mbappé has signed for Spanish champions Real Madrid, ending a drawn-out saga and strengthening the newly crowned European champions with arguably the best player in the world.
“Real Madrid CF and Kylian Mbappé have reached an agreement whereby he will be a Real Madrid player for the next five seasons,” the club said in a statement on Monday evening.
Mbappé joins Real on a free transfer after his contract expired at Paris Saint-Germain. His team have dominated French football since being bought by a Qatari state investment firm but they failed to deliver victory in the Uefa Champions League.
The 25-year-old is already a World Cup winner and scored in the 2018 final as France beat Croatia. He then became only the second player in history to score a hat-trick in a World Cup final, although his French side went on to lose on penalties against Lionel Messi’s Argentina in the 2022 tournament in Qatar. The Paris-born forward has scored 46 goals in 77 appearances for Les Bleus, who are among the favourites to win this year’s European Championships. The tournament kicks off in Germany later this month.
Such is Mbappé’s stardom at home that French President Emmanuel Macron personally intervened when the player previously tried to leave PSG. The move to Real was widely expected but took months to confirm after a lengthy pursuit.
During his spell at the club, Mbappé scored 256 goals in 308 appearances, according to figures from Transfermarkt.
Signing the French player is another coup for Real and Florentino Pérez, the real estate tycoon in his second stint as the club’s president. His previous world-class signings have included France’s Zinedine Zidane, Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo and England’s David Beckham.
On Saturday night, Real added a 15th European title — more than twice the number won by any other club — after beating German side Borussia Dortmund 2-0 at London’s Wembley Stadium. After the victory, Pérez said: “This is the starting point for trying to win the 16th.” Los Blancos also regained the Spanish title this year from arch-rivals Barcelona.
Mbappé becomes the latest name added to Real’s roster of big names that already includes England’s Jude Bellingham and Brazilian winger Vinicius Junior.
The Spanish champions have the highest revenue in world football, according to Deloitte, and recently completed a €1.2bn renovation of its Santiago Bernabéu stadium. Last week, the venue hosted Taylor Swift’s record-breaking Eras tour for two nights.
For PSG, Mbappé’s departure marks the latest step away from its previous model of targeting the world’s biggest names. That approach pushed PSG’s wage bill up to 109 per cent of revenue in the 2021-22 season, then a record in European football. However, that star-studded team has since disbanded, with Messi joining Inter Miami and Brazilian winger Neymar moving to Saudi Arabia’s Al Hilal.
Even so, losing Mbappé is a blow for PSG and its president, Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, who also chairs Qatar Sports Investments. It deprives France’s Ligue 1 of its biggest name at a time when the competition is struggling. The league still has no broadcaster for the coming season, and on Monday delayed its planned annual general meeting as executives work towards finding a solution.
Additional reporting by Barney Jopson in Madrid