The long-brewing rupture between Kylian Mbappé and Paris Saint-Germain spilled fully into public view on Monday as their dispute arrived at the French labour court, instantly transforming into a high-stakes battle of financial claims that dwarfs even the scale of their sporting split.
Mbappé, now with Real Madrid, is seeking 263 million euros ($304m) from his former club, alleging unpaid wages and bonuses, compensation tied to what he argues was the misclassification of his contract, and damages for what he describes as moral harassment and breaches of the club’s duty of good faith. PSG, in turn, is demanding an even larger sum — 440 million euros — citing what it calls a cascade of losses and misconduct by the player during his final year in Paris.
Neither side held back in a hearing marked by dueling lists of grievances. Represented by seven lawyers, PSG said its financial claim stems partly from the collapse of a 300-million-euro transfer to Saudi club Al Hilal that Mbappé rejected in June 2023. The club argues that his refusal deprived them of a historic fee and set off a chain of reputational and financial damage. Their filing also includes compensation for what they call breaches of good faith in negotiations, image harm, and an alleged agreement they say Mbappé failed to honour regarding salary reductions and bonuses.
“We are indeed claiming 440 million euros,” PSG lawyer Renaud Semerdjian said after the hearing, insisting the club had provided evidence of the player’s disloyalty — including concealing for nearly eleven months, from July 2022 to June 2023, his intention not to extend his contract, which ultimately allowed him to leave for free.
Mbappé, represented by four lawyers and absent from the courtroom, rejects that any such agreements ever existed. His camp maintains that he never waived payment entitlements and that PSG has produced no proof to the contrary.
The striker’s claims stretch well beyond unpaid sums. He argues that his fixed-term contract should have been reclassified as a permanent one under French labour law — a change that, if accepted, would trigger substantial compensation for unfair dismissal, severance, and unpaid wages. His lawyers say his demands are simply “the enforcement of his legal rights, as any employee would seek.”
Central to his filing is the treatment he received during the summer of 2023, when he informed PSG he would not extend his contract. Mbappé says the club isolated him — a practice widely known in France as “lofting” — by excluding him from the pre-season tour of Asia, making him train with players slated for departure, and leaving him out of the opening match of the season. The French players’ union had previously filed a complaint citing this type of isolation across the league.
PSG counters that Mbappé’s reintegration into the squad later that summer followed a verbal agreement that he would relinquish certain bonuses if he chose to depart as a free agent. Mbappé’s camp says no such accord existed.
The fallout traces back to the dramatic turn in 2022, when PSG offered the most lucrative contract in their history to keep their star forward — only for Mbappé to inform them a year later that he would not activate the option for an additional season. With his contract entering its final year, the club sought to sell him, but he refused the record-breaking Al Hilal offer and ultimately walked away for nothing, joining Real Madrid after scoring 256 goals in 308 PSG matches.
The tribunal is expected to deliver its ruling on December 16, leaving both sides in a tense wait as one of the most financially loaded disputes in football history continues to spill into public scrutiny.
