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Mbappe to earn £250,000 per week in Real Madrid

The Kylian Mbappe camp is stuffed with hardened dealmakers, writes 90min.com. Mbappe’s father Wilfried laughed off Caen’s attempts to secure the services of his son when he was 14, scoffing that the club were “trying to catch a shark with a fishing rod” after their opening offer.

Fayza Lamari, the more feared half of Mbappe’s tigerish parenting team, was not impressed when Chelsea offered her son a second trial in 2011. Lamari told the club’s youth department chief, Jim Fraser, via the French-speaking scout Daniel Boga: “If you want to sign him, you sign him now. In five years, you will come back for him for £50m.” Boga left out the arrogant warning in his translation.

Up against a fleet of lawyers and advisers alongside Mbappe’s parents, Real Madrid appears to have finally emerged with a resolution from the negotiations.

No transfer fee will be required as Mbappe’s deal in the French capital expires this summer but there is still the small matter of his wages and signing-on bonus for Madrid to cover.

Here’s the deal that Mbappe’s team have been able to extract from the Spanish giants.

The tiresome sagas surrounding Mbappe’s contractual status at PSG have trundled along since 2021. That summer, PSG chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi made a defiant stance on Mbappe’s future. “I will be clear,” he declared. “Mbappe is going to stay in Paris. We will never sell him and he will never leave on a free (transfer).”

Al-Khelaifi has been forced to continually adhere to Mbappe’s demands to ensure that he can fulfil his promise to the fans. Madrid – and the rest of the world – thought they had finally extracted Mbappe from Paris in the summer of 2022 when the Frenchman was out of contract.

However, Mbappe left Florentino Perez hanging and agreed to a new deal at PSG. While the shirt that Mbappe held aloft to celebrate the renewal had 2025 on the back, it was a two-year contract with an option – that could only be exercised by Mbappe – for another year.

Mbappe has played down rumours that his new deal entitled him to a say in the club’s transfer policy but it certainly guaranteed a hefty wage. The 25-year-old rakes in an estimated gross annual wage of €72m (£62m) – which roughly equates to £630,000-per-week after tax. This is comfortably the largest salary in European football although it still pales in comparison to the sums afforded to the Saudi Pro League figurehead, Cristiano Ronaldo.

Saudi giants Al Hilal infamously launched a record-shattering £259m bid to buy Mbappe when it became clear that he would not renew his deal at PSG. Mbappe’s iron-fisted camp reportedly shut the outlandish approach down abruptly even though the player could have earned a supposed £604m per year.

In February, 90min revealed that PSG’s offer to Mbappe was for roughly the same €70m-gross-per-year salary that he was already on. However, the club were also willing to retroactively award Mbappe the €80m (£69m) loyalty bonus that he gave up in September.

After rebuffing Al Hilal’s advances, Mbappe came to a complex agreement with PSG to ensure that the club were not financially exposed by his departure on a free transfer. Based on this deal – which comes out of Mbappe’s pocket – and the wage he is set to earn in Madrid, money has not been the defining factor.

When Mbappe signed his extension with PSG in 2022, the £86m signing-on bonus he reportedly collected would have been the single-biggest payment to a footballer in the history of the sport. Madrid has topped that sum with a bonus of £128m that is set to be divided across a five-year contract (per BBC).

Mbappe’s proposed base salary of just £12.8m per year is a significant decrease from the £22m offer that Madrid made 18 months ago. However, Mbappe has been able to hang on to a proportion of his image rights – a luxury afforded to few players at Real Madrid.

Since missing out on Neymar a decade ago, Real Madrid have embarked upon a dazzling youth project, infusing the squad with some of the world’s most talented prodigies almost by stealth.

Throughout this season, Madrid have systematically extended the contracts of these young stars, protecting themselves from the financial might of state-owned clubs (such as PSG).

Yet, despite the recent wage bumps, the club’s veterans are their best-paid players. Toni Kroos and Luka Modric are both in the final year of their lucrative contracts. While Modric may be on his way out, Kroos could very well extend his existing deal to team up with Mbappe. Even after the Frenchman’s arrival, Kroos would still boast the highest base salary at the club.

Kroos is the highest earner in Real Madrid with £400,000 without bonus. He is followed by David Alaba, who earns £370,000 and Luka Modric (£360,000), while Vinicius Junior and Jude Bellingham earn £340,000 each.

Mbappe will get £250, 000 a week. Of course, he has an extra £25.6m from his signing-on bonus to pile on top of his yearly haul each year, but such a low base rate – the same as goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois and less than Jude Bellingham, a player five years younger than Mbappe – smacks of a statement from Perez.

The Madrid president did not take kindly to Mbappe’s dramatic U-turn in 2022, particularly after making his interest in the forward so well known. While his eagerness to finally end the saga is still there – despite the awkward question of where on earth he fits into the team on the pitch – Perez still needed a way of ‘winning’ the negotiations. Mbappe’s parents may be fearsome hagglers, but Perez is another breed entirely.

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