Paris Saint-Germain are ‘expecting’ an offer from Chelsea for their transfer-listed superstar Kylian Mbappe, according to reports in France.
The French club are also anticipating a renewed attempt from Saudi club Al Hilal to persuade Mbappe to agree personal terms.
He reportedly refused to even meet with an Al Hilal delegation in Paris last week. The Saudi Arabian team were given permission to speak to Mbappe by PSG after lodging a world record £259million bid earlier this month.
PSG fear all efforts to sign Mbappe this summer will be in vain, though. Sources close to the club are convinced he has already agreed a deal to sign for Real Madrid on a free transfer and secure a 160m euro (£138m) signing-on fee.
The Saudi league is still understood to be pushing hard to secure Mbappe as its marquee player, having appointed former Chelsea technical director Michael Emenalo as the director of football at its Player Acquisition Centre of Excellence (PACE) to lead recruitment centrally for the league’s clubs.
Speculation around Mbappe increased in intensity in June when it became clear he would not activate the one-year extension in his PSG deal to keep him under contract until 2025.
READ MORE: Kylian Mbappe: The ridiculous statistics of the summer transfer window’s most-wanted star
His exit from the club seemed almost certain when he was omitted from the pre-season tour of Japan and South Korea, which sparked the rush of interest in him, including the world-record bid from Al Hilal.
French newspaper L’Equipe are now claiming that PSG are ‘expecting a concrete offer from Chelsea‘ but the exact details of the potential proposal ‘have not yet filtered’ through.
Spanish publication Nacional have more information about interest from the Premier League with the report insisting that Mbappe has given Liverpool a ‘resounding’ answer of ‘no’ to joining them this summer.
Previous reports had claimed that Liverpool wanted to take Mbappe on a season-long loan deal before the France international joined Real Madrid next summer.
But Mbappe has now ‘rejected Liverpool and will only leave to go to Real Madrid’ despite Jurgen Klopp privately making ‘it clear that he wants him to become his star’.
However, those claims seem ‘spurious’ with Klopp announcing in a press conference yesterday that Mbappe was out of Liverpool’s budget for this summer.
Klopp told reporters: “We laugh about it. I can say that I think he’s a really good player, but the financial conditions don’t suit us at all. I wouldn’t like to ruin the story now, but as far as I know, there’s nothing to it.
“But it’s possible that someone else from the club is preparing something and wants to surprise me, but that hasn’t happened in the eight years that I’ve been here. That would be the first time.”
