Kylian Mbappé reinstated in the PSG team, a relaxed start with the club – Liberation

2023-08-13 17:55:44

The French footballer has been at the heart of a standoff with his club since announcing in June that he would not extend to Paris after the end of the 2023-2024 season.

Is this the beginning of reconciliation? After a showdown of several weeks with its star, PSG decided to reintegrate Kylian Mbappé into the first team this Sunday, August 13, a sign of a noticeable relaxation between the two parties. The day after the soporific draw conceded by the Parisians against Lorient at the Parc des Princes, during the first day of Ligue 1 (0-0), the club from the capital and the 2018 world champion have obviously decided to play the card of appeasement. Some even see it as harbingers of a future agreement, and therefore of the resolution of a crisis which threatened to seriously falter PSG.

“After very constructive and positive discussions between Paris Saint-Germain and Kylian Mbappé before the PSG-Lorient match, this Saturday August 12, the player was reinstated in the first training team this [dimanche] morning,” said the Parisian club in a press release.

Until then, the positions of the two camps seemed completely fixed, Mbappé wishing to go to the end of his contract, in June 2024, without extending it, while the leaders of PSG considered it impossible to let their star leave for free in a year and said they were ready to sell it this summer. The conflict had reached its climax with the sidelining of the player, deprived at the end of July of the tour of Japan and South Korea then of the reception of Lorient in the league on Saturday.

Reconciliation with Mbappé, Neymar on the departure

A rapprochement had all the same taken shape yesterday and some signs could suggest a lull. Mbappé had not failed to welcome the arrival in Paris of Ousmane Dembélé, with whom he was world champion in 2018 in the jersey of the Blues. The two friends were then displayed together and all smiles in the stands of the Park to attend the match against Lorient, while Neymar, for whom the doors for a departure are wide open, was conspicuous by his absence.

The latest developments concerning the Brazilian are also perhaps not without impact on the current thaw. The “Ney” is “probably about to leave and is no longer part of the coach’s and PSG’s plans”, according to a source close to the negotiations, who evokes discussions with a resident of the Saudi championship.

Walled in silence, Kylian Mbappé has in any case always displayed an unfailing serenity during his public appearances, stopping in particular to sign autographs when he arrives at the PSG training center in Poissy, just to show that he remained fully involved in the life of the club despite the inclinations of its leaders to sell. By obtaining his reinstatement, he has partly won his case even if it is still too early to know if we are heading towards an extension of the player’s contract, as required by the management of the club, owned by Qatar since 2011.