Al Khelaifi: I want Mbappe to stay in Paris

Nasser Al Khelaifi, the president of Paris Saint-Germian, has spent this afternoon on the program Rothen s’enflamme on RMC Sport to analyze the futures of the club and Kylian Mbappe, admits rumors of a move to Real Madrid.

Mbappe‘s contract expires in June 2024 and thus there has been a lot of discussion over where the wide forward, regarded by many as the best in the world, will head to next between the Middle East and Real Madrid, or whether he will stay at the Parc de Princes.

“Look, I’m not hiding anything,” Al Khelaifi said to RMC. “For sure I want Mbappe to stay. For me he is the best in the world and for me the best club for Kylian is Paris.

“He is the center of the project today. It’s normal to ask about him. For me he is the best in the world, I have a very good relationship with him. Not only as a player, as a person.

“He has an agreement with me, as he has said. There is no negotiation, but I think he is still young, he wants to win many trophies and hopefully with us.”

A change of direction for PSG

Despite their dominance of Ligue 1 for the past decade, seldom being beaten by the other French teams in not just the league but also the domestic cups, PSG have not managed to achieve their dream target of winning the UEFA Champions League.

They closest they’ve got was the final in 2020, when they lost to Bayern Munich, and despite possessing all of Neymar, Mbappe and Lionel Messi for two seasons, they never managed to take the silver step to lift the big silver trophy.

That’s prompted a change of direction from the ownership as they look to appease their fans who are growing frustrated with the shortcomings that includes the famous 6-1 defeat against Barcelona to lose 6-5 on aggregate.

“We have done many things, some have worked and some have not,” Al Khelaifi continued. “We have made mistakes, it’s normal.

“Now we have made a young team, with French people, for the long term, we are not in a hurry. We have made a good technical team and the system has also changed and it is a pleasure to see this team. We play soccer, they play as a team, they defend together, the atmosphere is magnificent.

“It was time to change, to build something new. In Paris we have the best player in the world, and today we are one of the best clubs in the world. We are fourth in the UEFA rankings. We arrived in 2011 and I don’t know where we were in the ranking.

“We have to continue and we work to win, also the Champions League, but maybe it was a mistake to put so much pressure on the Champions League. Soccer is not that simple.”