The most coveted player north of the Pyrenees is not Kylian Mbappé. This is Harry Kane. In the last month the 29-year-old Tottenham striker has held talks with Manchester United, PSG and Bayern Munich. The three clubs have made offers to hire him, at a rate of about 20 million net annual salary for four or five seasons, depending on the case. Kane has opened the doors for them. The Englishman, according to sources close to the suitors, has been enthusiastic about the three projects. But PSG has acknowledged that before making a formal offer to Tottenham, UEFA’s financial fair play rules require him to pay money. The urgency urges the Paris club, which, involved in the market race, has begun to consider the transfer of Kylian Mbappé as something that cannot be postponed, even to Real Madrid, the last club with which they want to sit down to negotiate.
The PSG leaders say that even Lionel Messi helped them to convince themselves of the need to hire a footballer like Kane. When the Argentine ended the season in June, he said goodbye to club president Nasser al-Khelaifi on excellent terms. The Qatari’s advisers say that Al-Khelaifi met with Messi and the two talked openly, free of the institutional formality that for two years had pigeonholed each one in the role of boss and employee. During the conversation, the president asked the Argentine if he believed that Mbappé could be the pillar of a project to win the Champions League. The conclusion drawn by the presidential entourage was that Mbappé could be the best specialist in the world in unchecking and finishing, but to lead a team, a player who knew how to handle all the registers of the game was fundamentally needed. Someone with the technical characteristics of the ill-fated Neymar.
When the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, a great supporter of Neymar’s signing in 2017, learned of Messi’s opinion, he was completely convinced, according to the same sources. Mbappé, in the emir’s plans, stopped representing the essential footballer. If he aspired to win the Champions League, the team had to put himself in the hands of footballers with a strategic sense, players like the ones his sports director Luis Campos recommended signing: Harry Kane and Bernardo Silva. Without further delay, PSG redoubled contacts with Kane and Silva and it didn’t take long to reach an agreement with both. The attackers were satisfied with the contracts offered by the club, adding that they were willing to settle in Paris, and left the final negotiation in the hands of their respective clubs, Tottenham, which has a contract with Kane until 2024, and City, with rights to Silva until 2025.
90 million on September 5
On June 13, Mbappé decided to make public his decision not to continue at PSG beyond 2024 and the sheikhs reaffirmed the need to sell him. The player informed the newspaper L’Équipe, communicated it to Agence France Presse, and sent it by letter to PSG, indicating that he would not renew his contract, which expired in June 2024. Al-Khelaifi’s advisers concluded two things. First, that Mbappé wanted to complete his contract and stay free because that way he would earn more money since he would receive two bonuses, the second payment of the loyalty bonus stipulated by the renewal contract signed in 2022, according to which PSG must pay him 90 million euros if he remained at the club on September 5, 2023, and the transfer bonus that his future employer would pay him in 2024, an amount that the agents consulted estimate at no less than 150 million. of euros. Secondly, the leaders of Paris considered that by making public his interest in not renewing the player, he tried to cover himself politically before the local fans, presenting himself as someone who was not secretly acting behind PSG.
The PSG, say the people close to his management, has liquidity. He could pay up to 130 million in cash to Tottenham and close the transfer of Kane right now. If Al-Khelaifi has not yet officially addressed the London club, it is due to legal imperatives. To shell out €100m, you must first deposit an equivalent amount, or risk breaking UEFA’s financial fair-play rules. This would expose PSG to a sanction that could leave it out of the Champions League. Faced with the need to sign Silva and Kane without alarming the supervisors, the Qataris set out to cash in on Mbappé while they can. Al-Khelaifi said it with all the elegance that he was capable of, when he introduced Luis Enrique on July 5: “Mbappé is a great boy, a gentleman, so [si dice que quiere] leaving for free, weakening the biggest club in his country… that’s not him. He surprised me and disappointed me ”.
This is how a person close to the owners of PSG explains it: “Imagine a checking account with 500 million. If you sell Mbappé for his market price before September, the account goes up to 700. If he stays, you have to pay him 90 million, which is the part of the transfer bonus that they owe him. In September the account stays at 410″.
While Bayern have been negotiating with Tottenham for weeks, there is an air of frustration at PSG. The leaders study formulas to get out of the mess. Both Al-Khelaifi and sources linked to Mbappé’s lawyers agree: the footballer does not want to leave Paris until the summer of 2024, the law protects him, and the club has not received a single offer for him. If the situation continues and Mbappé goes free collecting his transfer, PSG would suffer a loss of assets while the signings of Silva and Kane would be seriously complicated, two pieces that the coaches and owners consider more important than that of the French striker.
United resigns and Bayern leads
Only Bayern, one of PSG’s two rivals in the race for Harry Kane, remains lurking. Manchester United was convinced that they could never get the nine when Daniel Levy, president of Tottenham, rejected an offer of 100 million plus bonus days ago. Both Kane and the United executives came to the idea that Levy would never allow his franchise player to reinforce a direct adversary in the fight of the Premier teams to qualify for the Champions League positions. The striker believes that his fate places him in Paris or Munich. From Bavaria they have been courting him for a year. Last week Thomas Tuchel, the Bayern manager, came to Kane’s London home to try to persuade him of the opportunity to move to Bayern. He told her about Kim Min-Jae’s reinforcements and the plan to add Kyle Walker and Frenkie de Jong. The visit impressed Kane, who warned the emissaries of his position: he wants to leave Tottenham to play for a powerful team to try to win the Champions League, and he wants to do it this summer – before being free in January 2024 – so that Tottenham collects his transfer. He feels indebted to the club of his life.
PSG and Bayern have received the same message from Kane, according to people involved in the negotiation. The offers excite him, but he won’t put too much pressure on Tottenham. The last word is his club. Bayern, quickly, is already negotiating with Tottenham: it has offered 80 million. PSG, under the threat of financial fair play, is waiting for its moment. He is looking for money and Mbappé appears to him as the most obvious resource.
You can follow EL PAÍS Sports on Facebook y Twitteror sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
2023-07-21 03:16:21
#race #sign #Kane #pressures #PSG #sell #Mbappé
