Paris Saint-Germain have denied offering Kylian Mbappe a contract extension worth €200m (£166m).
The Independent reported exclusively last month that PSG had offered to make the Frenchman the world’s highest-paid footballer in a bid to secure his long-term future at the club.
Mbappe’s existing deal expires this summer, and the 23-year-old has been heavily linked with a move to Real Madrid. It had been widely rumoured that Mbappe would favour a switch to the Spanish capital.
Noting that no exact figures had yet been discussed, PSG sporting director Leonardo confirmed that the club will “try everything” in an attempt to keep the forward.
“Our chances of keeping him? I can’t say, but we have possibilities,” Leonardo told L’Equipe. “As long as there is no signature, we will try everything, we will do everything to keep him. I don’t think he will judge based on the result against Real Madrid [in the Champions League Round of 16 tie].
“We have a new generation coming through, we have youngsters from the training ground, we have the desire to make other investments.”
Commenting specifically on speculation over the value of the contract, Leonardo continued: “That’s not true, we haven’t sent a precise offer.
“There is one important element: I think that the last thing we will put on this contract will be the amount. We want to put him in the best conditions to become the best player possible. I think it will take two minutes at the end to put the amount.”
Mbappe joined PSG from Monaco on an initial loan deal in 2017. That was converted into a permanent deal a year later, and the Frenchman is now the club’s second leading scorer of all-time.
Leonardo, who spent a season at PSG as a player and is in his second stint as an executive, hopes that the stature of Mauricio Pochettino’s side helps convince Mbappe to stay, and does not perceive the presence of Lionel Messi and Neymar in Paris as being an issue.
“It’s a question of feeling. When a French player starts out, his objective is to play abroad. It’s no coincidence that in the 1998 world champion team, you had a majority of players who played abroad.
“In 2018, Kylian was the only one of the typical XI who played in France. [Paul] Pogba and [Antoine] Griezmann never played in Ligue 1, [Zinedine] Zidane made his career more abroad than in France. But at the time, there wasn’t a club the size of PSG.
“We are not sellers, that changes the spirit. Now I think Kylian has really thought things through. The feeling we had on Saturday at the stadium was magnificent. Something is being created, not just for him.
“I’m not here to be cheesy but other clubs don’t have ultras like that. It can weigh on you. It’s a feeling, made up of an accumulation of little things. It’s up to us to understand it and to know what it needs at any given moment.
“When you come to a team with maybe the best player in history [Lionel Messi], Neymar and him, you can say: who is first, second, etc? But there is a harmony, a respect between them.”
