Real Madrid president Florentino Perez says Kylian Mbappe didn’t betray him after the Frenchman opted to stay at Paris Saint-Germain.
Mbappe was heavily linked with a move to Madrid in a transfer saga of the year. Speaking to the Spanish programme El Chiringuito on Wednesday, Florentino denied rumours spreading that Mbappe betrayed him.
“He didn’t betray me. He transmitted his dream to play at Real Madrid. And it’s true. Last August PSG didn’t want to sell. We waited a year and he kept saying the same thing. Fifteen days before the situation changed because of the political pressure and the economic factor,” he said.
“He did what he thought was easiest. He changed. There’s no need to go over it again. As a result of the pressure he had to change his dreams… he’s very young, the pressure affects us all but the young people more. It didn’t make sense that the President of the Republic [Emmanuel Macron] was calling him… This influenced him a lot, most definitely.”
Perez went on to claim that Mbappe in that state was not one that he wanted, although he didn’t close the door to signing him down the line.
“The Mbappe I wanted was the one that dreamed of Real Madrid. Signing him in three years? I don’t know… in the space of 3 years, we could all be bald [anything can happen].”
“This Mbappe, is not Mbappe. A player that refuses to do an act of sponsorship with his national team, I don’t want. I thought that he had a dream, but sometimes they [dreams] can’t be realised because of external causes.”
The World Cup winner has only been at PSG since 2017 but he already boasts an impressive goal tally of 168 – just 23 goals behind Edinson Cavani in the all-time top scorers’ list for the French giants.
