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Kylian Mbappé has instructed lawyers to unleash a wave of legal action to recover €55mn the French football star claims he is owed in unpaid wages and bonuses by his former club Paris Saint-Germain.
The dispute stems from Mbappé’s acrimonious 2024 move to Spanish giants Real Madrid, the year after he was temporarily sidelined by PSG, which he alleges dropped him from the team after he refused to extend his contract at the club.
At a press conference in Paris announcing criminal and civil suits, one of Mbappé’s lawyers, Thomas Clay, said: “I remind you that Kylian Mbappé is the captain of the French national team, he’s the highest scorer in the history of the club and that he is owed a bit of recognition: that is to say, that he is paid his salary.”
Another of his lawyers, Delphine Verheyden, said it was “time to go on the attack” against PSG, adding that a Paris civil court judge had granted an order to provisionally freeze €55mn of the club’s assets.
The legal campaign reveals the deep acrimony that has built up between the captain of the French football team and PSG, France’s pre-eminent club.
Qatari-owned PSG said the version of events presented by Mbappé, who shot to global prominence aged 19 when he played a key role in France’s 2018 world cup victory, existed in a “parallel universe of fanciful storytelling”.
“PSG continues to fail to understand why Kylian Mbappé is refusing an amicable resolution, while . . . still refusing to take his case to the Labour Court which is the only court competent to settle the dispute,” the club added.
Lawyers for Mbappé, who became the second-most valuable player of all time when the club signed him for €180mn in 2017, said they had also filed a complaint with the French Football Federation asking it to notify Uefa, European football’s governing body, that he is owed unpaid wages.
They claim this could lead to PSG being barred from playing in the Champions League, Europe’s most lucrative club competition. A person close to PSG downplayed the possibility. Uefa declined to comment.
Mbappé’s lawyers said they also planned to raise a dispute in the labour courts.
Mbappé claims that after he confirmed in February 2024 that he would leave PSG, the French club refused to pay him from April to June 2024, when he signed for Real Madrid on a free transfer.
PSG has said the player had verbally agreed to forgo his wages. While the club denies that it owes the money, a person familiar with the matter said it had set aside €55mn in case it is was ordered to pay.
One of Mbappé’s lawyers said the player, widely regarded as one of the best in the world, also intended to file a criminal complaint against PSG for “moral harassment” with France’s public prosecutors in the coming days. The player claims PSG’s decision to exclude him in 2023 was a form of extortion to make him sign a new contract.
Separately, Mbappé’s lawyers said they were taking action against X and Meta in a criminal court over allegedly defamatory social media posts about him and his mother that were linked to the stand-off over his pay.
X declined to comment. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
PSG has continued to dominate French club football since Mbappé’s departure, winning this season’s domestic league and this week beating English side Aston Villa in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals.
