Kylian Mbappe must sign a new contract if he wants to stay at Paris St-Germain, according to club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi.
While Mbappe's contract expires next summer, he does have the option to extend his stay at Parc de Princes for an extra 12 months but was strongly linked with both Liverpool and Real Madrid in previous years, particularly before his most recent contract renewal in 2022, and a move could be on the cards again.
PSG and Mbappe are no longer in a happy marriage and talk of his exit remains dominant. The forward reportedly wants to leave Paris, but Al-Khelaifi, chairman of the owners of the club, Qatar Sports Investments, is ready to play hardball with his club's star player.
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Al-Khelaifi bluntly summed up the 24-year-old's situation at the unveiling of Luis Enrique as their club's new manager. "Our position is very clear," he said. "If Kylian Mbappe wants to stay - we want him to stay - he needs to sign a new contract.
"We cannot let the best player in the world right now leave for free. That is impossible. This is a French club and, as he has said, he is not planning to leave for free."
This new development has set pulses racing and it was claimed on Thursday by Spanish journalist Edu Aguirre, of the popular show El Chiringuito, that Liverpool had made a bid of €200m for Mbappe. Admittedly, such a concept seems far-fetched, but is sure to excite Reds supporters.
With that in mind, here is everything that, arguably, the world's best player at the time of writing has said about Liverpool and potentially making the switch to Merseyside.
Speaking in May of last year, Mbappe revealed that he thought about joining Liverpool before deciding to stay at PSG and discussed a potential move when was set to depart Monaco in 2017.
“We talked a little bit, but not too much. We talked a little bit,” he told the Daily Telegraph. "I talked to Liverpool because it’s the favourite club of my mum, my mum loves Liverpool.
“I don’t know why, you will have to ask her! It’s a good club and we met them five years ago. When I was in Monaco I met them. It’s a big club.”
It's not too difficult to picture Mbappe working under Jurgen Klopp either, given the Frenchman's vocal admiration for Liverpool's performances and style, as well as the former Borussia Dortmund boss himself in 2020.
"What Liverpool do in this moment is amazing," he told BBC Sport. "They're like a machine, they've found a rhythm and are like 'we play again, we play again'.
"They've lost zero games. When you watch you think everything's easy but that's not easy. The guys are focused, they play games every three days and they win, they win, they win.
"Now the problem is that everybody watches Liverpool, and everybody watches what we can do against them, so now they have to show they are strong again but it's a very good team with a very good manager."
While in May of that same year, during the shutdown of football due to the Covid-19 outbreak, Mbappe lavished praise on Jurgen Klopp and paid tribute to the Reds' remarkable Premier League campaign.
Speaking to the Mirror, he said: “This season, Liverpool have been a machine in the Premier League. They have made winning look easy but the truth is that it is never easy.
“Performances like they have been having don’t just happen. To be as ruthless as they have been would come from lots of hard work in training and from having a very good manager.”
