The Paris Saint-Germain president has moved to replace Leonardo as the club’s sporting director and Mauricio Pochettino as their head coach.
Working under instruction from the Emir of Qatar, Nasser Al-Khelaifi is seeking replacements for both roles, while the composition of an expensively assembled PSG squad — which includes Lionel Messi, Neymar and Sergio Ramos but exited the Champions League in its first knockout round — is also under review.
One player who will be staying is Kylian Mbappé, after his recent high-profile announcement of a new contract. He may be joined in Paris by Luís Campos, the sporting director who launched the France forward’s professional career at Monaco.
Campos, who built squads at Monaco and Lille that beat PSG to the 2016-17 and 2020-21 Ligue 1 titles, is negotiating the conditions under which he would take responsibility for reshaping the Parc des Princes squad into one capable of winning a first Champions League.
Two presidents of France played pivotal roles in persuading Mbappé to reject Real Madrid in favour of signing his new contract at PSG. The recently re-elected Emmanuel Macron and his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy helped convince Mbappé of his importance not simply to PSG’s aim to establish themselves as Europe’s leading club but also to the future of French football.
The two politicians’ direct appeal to the France international’s sense of patriotism was coupled by a statement of intent from the Qatar-owned club to “revolutionise” the organisation and operation of PSG’s football department.
According to sources familiar with the negotiations, Macron and Sarkozy’s patriotic pitch changed Mbappé’s thinking about the next stage of his career. The 23-year-old was asked to consider the repercussions that his exit to Madrid would have for the French game during a period in which the Covid pandemic and the loss of media rights deals worth over €1 billion (about £850 million) a year had damaged the finances of every Ligue 1 club.
His status as the heir apparent to Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, it was argued, meant that Mbappé remaining in France would materially benefit not only PSG but all of French football in the run-up to the 2024 Paris Olympics — and a successful football industry was of great importance to the entire French economy.
“We talked quite a bit,” Mbappé said last week of his conversations with Macron. “You can say that it was good advice. He wanted me to stay, that’s part of the negotiations.
“It’s then that you see that football has changed and has an important place in society. It’s important to also know how to stay in one’s place despite the importance that can be given to me in the country.”
Real Madrid had prioritised the recruitment of Mbappé for more than a year, eventually offering the forward a signing-on fee understood to amount to €130 million and an initial after-tax salary of €25 million. Carefully advised by his parents throughout the negotiations on the proposed freedom-of-contact transfer, Mbappé ultimately signed a contract at PSG that will run for a maximum of three seasons.
