Exclusive: Man United’s potential new owners set to be thwarted in Mbappe chase
There’s still work to be done for Sheikh Jassim or Sir Jim Ratcliffe to become the new owner of Manchester United, but if they thought that the statement signing of Paris Saint-Germain’s Kylian Mbappe was the way to win over the Old Trafford faithful, they’re set to be disappointed.
Of course, the Glazer family will have something to say about who, if anyone, takes over the storied English outfit, but as Football Insider note, sources have said United could launch a bid for the French World Cup winner, with recruitment chiefs at the club already preparing the groundwork for a summer transfer offensive.
Jonathan Johnson, writing exclusively in his CaughtOffside column for a piece that will be published in full tomorrow on CaughtOffside’s Substack, believes that’s a non-starter, with Mbappe looking to hang around in the French capital for a little while longer.
“My opinion on Mbappe and PSG hasn’t changed for the last couple of years,” he wrote.
“I think the most logical out point for him from PSG and France in general is the Olympics in 2024, if he wins a gold medal with his country in Paris that would be a way to go out on a real high. That would also take him to the final year of his contract with PSG, though there is an option to extend it by one more year if he wants to.
“You’d expect by then that he’ll intimate his plans for the future, but I think we’ll see him there for at least one more season, which gives PSG another crack at the Champions League.”
Even if you can never say never in football, Johnson suggests that the striker needs to take into account the lengths that PSG went to in order to keep him at the club during the recent contract discussions.
“Equally, I think there has to be some level of self-awareness from Mbappe as well – why have PSG become so limited financially in the transfer market?,” he added.
“It’s probably down to his contract extension last year in large part, because it was a massive financial effort from PSG to renew him.
“It’s true that Mbappe stayed for the project, not for the finances, but it’s still the reality that it’s a big financial commitment from PSG, and with Financial Fair Play being revamped, that kind of statement has consequences and one of those consequences is a transfer window last summer that, by all accounts, has not gone down particularly well or been a great success.”
A potential hire of Zinedine Zidane as manager of the Ligue Un giants would surely put the nail in the coffin of Man United’s aspirations, and those of any other club for that matter.
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