PARIS: Paris Saint-Germain coach Mauricio Pochettino insisted Friday he has no idea where Kylian Mbappe will play his club football next season as the striker’s contract in the French capital comes to an end.
Mbappe is expected to reveal in the coming days whether he will join Real Madrid or accept a lucrative offer to stay at PSG, with an announcement potentially being made in the hours after the French champions play their final game of the Ligue 1 season at home to Metz on Saturday.
“I don’t know what his decision is. I think it’s a personal matter for Kylian and for the club,” Pochettino said at a press conference ahead of the Metz match.
“There are lots of rumors going around but the player is the one who will have to talk about this.
“If I knew what his decision was I wouldn’t be the one to talk about it.”
Mbappe, who joined PSG from Monaco in 2017, last week won the Ligue 1 Player of the Year prize and comes into the final weekend of the season as the division’s top scorer with 25 goals.
Rumours are swirling in France and in Spain about when he will confirm where his next contract will be.
“Mbappe, end of the suspense on Sunday,” claimed the headline in French sports daily L’Equipe on Friday.
Pochettino said he hoped the 23-year-old would remain at PSG even if uncertainty surrounds the coach’s own future despite the Argentine and his staff having a year left on their own deals.
“I hope Kylian is still here for many years to come but I also can’t lie. I don’t know what is going to happen,” he said.
“We have a year left on our contracts so we will potentially be here next season. I just hope tomorrow (Saturday) we can enjoy celebrating the club’s 10th league title.”
One player who is definitely expected to move on is Angel di Maria, with the 34-year-old Argentine winger’s own contract expiring and PSG understood to be happy for him to leave.
PSG have cantered to the Ligue 1 title, equalling Saint-Etienne’s French record for most league championships, but their season has been soured by defeat against Real Madrid in the Champions League last 16 in early March.
The Parisians were 1-0 up away to Madrid an hour into the second leg thanks to a Mbappe goal, and led 2-0 on aggregate, only to implode and go out to a Karim Benzema hat-trick.
“I hope the best is still to come. I think everyone at Paris Saint-Germain wants to win the Champions League. That has become an obsession for this club and I hope we can win it,” Pochettino added.
“That spell in the second half in Madrid saw us not get the result we wanted and created lots of questions and emotions that we have not been able to control in recent months.
“Despite that the players deserve to be congratulated because they have shown the ability to lift themselves and finish the season.”
PSG coach Pochettino in the dark over Mbappe future
https://arab.news/923vn
PSG coach Pochettino in the dark over Mbappe future
- Mbappe is expected to reveal in the coming days whether he will join Real Madrid or accept a lucrative offer to stay at PSG
- "I don't know what his decision is. I think it's a personal matter for Kylian and for the club," Pochettino said
Set to go: Two weeks of tennis mania Down Under ahead of the Australian Open
- Leading the way is the United Cup, a mixed teams event which will be played in Perth and Sydney beginning Friday and finishing Jan. 11
- Also during the first full week of 2026, the Brisbane International will be headlined by defending champion Aryna Sabalenka, fresh off the Battle of the Sexes exhibition against Nick Kyrgios in Dubai
BRISBANE: If it’s a new year, it must be serious tennis time Down Under.
Just over six weeks since the ATP and WTA held their respective 2025 Finals, players on the men’s and women’s tours are arriving in Australia and New Zealand for a crammed two-week schedule of tournaments ahead of the Australian Open, the year’s first Grand Slam event starting Jan. 18 in Melbourne.
Leading the way is the United Cup, a mixed teams event which will be played in Perth and Sydney beginning Friday and finishing Jan. 11. The tournament will feature four of the world’s top 10 men and women including Coco Gauff, Taylor Fritz, Alex de Minaur, Iga Świątek, Alexander Zverev, Jasmine Paolini and Felix Auger-Aliassime.
Also during the first full week of 2026, the Brisbane International will be headlined by defending champion Aryna Sabalenka, fresh off the Battle of the Sexes exhibition against Nick Kyrgios in Dubai.
But missing from the pre-Australian Open tournaments are the two biggest names in men’s tennis: No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz and second-ranked Jannik Sinner.
Alcaraz and Sinner — who have won nine of the last 10 Grand Slam singles titles, with Sinner winning the 2025 Australian Open — have decided to play an exhibition at Incheon, South Korea on Jan. 10. After the exhibition, it’s expected they’ll fly to Australia to begin their preparations at Melbourne Park.
Alcaraz will be playing his first major in seven years without coach Juan Carlos Ferrero — the Spanish player recently announced their split. Alcaraz has not announced a replacement.
Other players at the United Cup, which begins Friday with Greece taking on Japan in Perth, include Emma Raducanu, Naomi Osaka, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Stan Wawrinka, who has said 2026 will be his last year on tour.
The 40-year-old, three-time major winner Wawrinka says he hopes to improve on his current ranking of 157 and move back into the top 100 before he retires. His highest ranking was No. 3, achieved when he won the Australian Open in 2014.
“I’m happy with the decision (to retire) and feeling at peace with that,” Wawrinka said when he arrived earlier this week in Perth.
Joining Sabalenka at the 500-level Brisbane International will be two-time major finalist Amanda Anisimova, WTA Finals champion Elena Rybakina, reigning Australian Open champion Madison Keys, Jessica Pegula and Mirra Andreeva.
The 18-year-old Andreeva is tipped to be the next big thing in women’s tennis and she could renew her rivalry with Sabalenka in Brisbane. Sabalenka leads 4-2 in the head-to-head matches but world No. 9 Andreeva had a three-set win in the Indian Wells final in 2025.
The Russian also made it to the quarterfinals at last year’s French Open and Wimbledon along with the semis at Roland Garros in 2024 when at 17 she became the youngest to reach the final four in a major since Martina Hingis at the 1997 US Open.
“Maybe the rivalry (with Sabalenka) is a little bit there but she is leading ... unfortunately ... for now,” Andreeva told Australian Associated Press this week.
Andreeva lost to Sabalenka in the semifinals in Brisbane in 2025 and again in the fourth round at the Australian Open before her victory at Indian Wells where she was the youngest winner since Serena Williams.
“That gave me a lot of confidence. Winning Indian Wells is a milestone of my career so far,” she said.
In the second week of the warm-up events, the joint ATP- WTA Adelaide International featuring 24-time Grand Slam singles champion Novak Djokovic will run from Jan. 12-17 as well as a WTA 250 tournament at Hobart, Australia.
Auckland, New Zealand will host a WTA tournament from Jan. 5-11 before the ATP plays at the same venue from Jan. 12-17. Kyrgios and Frances Tiafoe are scheduled to play in an exhibition tournament at Kooyong in Melbourne several days before the Australian Open begins.
And in the only warm-up tournament being played outside Australia or New Zealand, Hong Kong will host an ATP event from Jan. 5-11.
The ATP events will come under a new rule for 2026 to address extreme heat during men’s matches that will allow for 10-minute breaks during best-of-three-sets singles matches and is similar to what was put in place on the WTA more than 30 years ago.
