Nasser Al-Khelaïfi infuriated by Kylian Mbappé’s ‘betrayal’ | OneFootball

In his time as Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaïfi has become accustomed to not hearing the word no.

The demands of the president are sacrosanct and it has been rare that he has ever been challenged internally in the thirteen years since QSI’s takeover of PSG. Kylian Mbappé  (25) joins a short list of names that have now rejected Al-Khelaïfi’s volition.

Carlo Ancelotti in 2013 and Adrien Rabiot (28) in 2019 notably stand before the forward in this unfamiliar position. According to L’Équipe, Ancelotti was under intense pressure from the president to remain as their manager but had grown increasingly annoyed by the pressure and threats from his leaders when results did not go the way they expected.

Ancelotti and Rabiot lead the way

He was the first manager to be chosen for the new regime when he joined at the tail end of 2011, and his eventual decision to leave in favour of a chance to join Real Madrid (a story that has begun to become increasingly familiar for Les Parisiens) was a blow for the organisation.

Rabiot came to blows with the club when he refused to extend his contract in the summer of 2018, and his continued insistence in December of that year to refuse a contract led to PSG exiling him to the reserves until March when the club were forced to bring him back into the squad. However, still they refused to play Rabiot and his last appearance came on the 11th of December 2018.

Al-Khelaïfi has always implemented his vision regardless of other’s desires. He refused to allow Edison Cavani (37) to leave in 2015. While in 2016, he ushered Zlatan Ibrahimović out the door when the forward wished to extend his contract. The club refused to countenance offers for players that they coveted, Neymar (32) in 2019 or Marco Veratti (31) in 2017. And again in 2021, when Real Madrid offered €160 million for Mbappé, the club rejected the offer.

Mbappé’s exclusion at the heart of his decision to leave PSG

It is this unbending approach that might have won Mabppé’s favour when he extended his contract for two years in 2021, but it is also what seems to have been the final straw. Last summer, Mbappé made it clear that he would not be extending his contract any further and it was said that Al-Khelaïfi responded as he had done so many times before, with only the stick and never the carrot.

Mbappé like Rabiot before him was excluded from the first team squad and made to train with a group of players nicknamed ‘the undesirables,’ and like his former teammate was warned that he would not play a single minute of football for the club until he signed a renewal.

It was a position that saw Mbappé sat in the stands for the opening game of the season against FC Lorient before a detente was formed and relations began to thaw between the player and president. As reported by L’Équipe, the damage had already been done, Mbappé considered what PSG had put him through as being nothing short of humiliating, and convinced him that there would be no changing his mind this time; Mbappé would leave PSG.

In February, Mbappé reportedly announced to the president that he would be leaving the club at the end of the season. It’s a decision that has already left some consequences on the player as the club reels from the rejection.

Until last month, Mbappé had started every single match since the third game of the season. However, in recent weeks his place in the team has come under question, and Luis Enrique has increasingly substituted the player early in matches. As an expert on the Qatari emirate explained to L’Équipe, “Usually when they want something, they get it. Mbappé’s refusal is experienced as an affront, a betrayal.”

GFFN | Nick Hartland