The long unravelling of relations between Kylian Mbappé and Paris Saint-Germain has advanced from acrimony to arithmetic of an extraordinary scale. This week, the Paris labour court received filings that pitch player and former employer against one another for a combined sum exceeding €700 million, a case less about football than about the terms on which football now understands labour, loyalty and value.
Kylian Mbappé–PSG Legal War Goes to Next Level
Mbappé, absent from Monday’s closed hearing, has expanded his original compensation claim from €55m to more than €260m. His lawyers contend that his fixed-term contract at Paris Saint-Germain should have been reclassified as permanent, entitling him to severance, withheld wages, bonuses and damages for what they describe as unfair dismissal and “moral harassment.” They cite his exclusion from PSG’s 2023 pre-season and the period he trained apart from the senior squad, a practice locally termed “lofting.”
PSG’s response has been to go larger still: a counter-claim of €440m for alleged financial and reputational injury. The club argues that Mbappé spent nearly a year withholding his intention not to extend his contract, thereby preventing any transfer negotiations and compelling PSG to lose a record asset for nothing. The club also maintains he reneged on what it characterises as a verbal understanding regarding bonus reductions in the event of a free departure.
The two versions of events now run in parallel lines. Mbappé’s legal team says no such agreement was ever formalised, and that the treatment he received once he confirmed he would not renew was designed to coerce him into reversing that decision. PSG, for their part, reject outright any allegation of mistreatment, noting that Mbappé played in more than 90 per cent of competitive fixtures in his final season and that all selections were the prerogative of the head coach.
For all the headline-grabbing sums, the case cuts to familiar tensions within the modern super-club: players as assets, contracts as leverage, and industrial law as the ultimate adjudicator. The court is expected to deliberate into 2026, with neither side showing any appetite to settle, proof, perhaps, that the most expensive battles in football are no longer waged on the pitch.
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