PARIS: Kylian Mbappe confirmed on Friday that he will leave French champions Paris Saint-Germain at the end of the season, with Real Madrid widely expected to be his next destination.
The announcement brings an end to a prolific association with his hometown team, which began when he signed from Monaco in 2017 in a deal worth 180 million euros ($194 million).
“I wanted to announce to you all that it’s my last year at Paris Saint-Germain. I will not extend and the adventure will come to an end in a few weeks,” Mbappe, 25, said in a video posted on social media.
“I will play my last game at the Parc des Princes on Sunday.”
PSG have already secured the Ligue 1 title, their 10th in the last 12 seasons, and the Qatar-owned club will pick up the trophy after Sunday’s game against Toulouse, which will be their last of the campaign on home turf.
Luis Enrique’s side were eliminated from the Champions League by Borussia Dortmund in the semifinals on Tuesday when a 1-0 loss in the second leg at home sealed a surprise 2-0 aggregate defeat.
It means Mbappe will be denied the send-off he had hoped for in the Champions League final at Wembley on June 1 and will end his seven-year spell at PSG without ever having won Europe’s elite club competition.
Mbappe informed PSG privately in February of his intention to depart when his contract expires at the end of the current campaign.
The 2018 World Cup winner had never confirmed publicly he was leaving, though, far less said where he will be going next, but it appears certain that he is bound for Real Madrid.
Spanish media have claimed for several months that Mbappe has signed an agreement which would see him join the Liga champions in July once his PSG deal runs out.
“It’s a lot of emotions, many years where I had the chance and the great honor to be a member of the biggest French club, one of the best in the world,” said Mbappe.
“It allowed me to arrive here, to have my first experience in a club with a lot of pressure, to grow as a player of course, by being alongside some of the best in history, some of the greatest champions,” he added.
“It’s hard and I never thought it would be this difficult to announce that... but I think I needed this, a new challenge, after seven years.”
Mbappe’s arrival in the capital as a teenager in 2017 came after he had helped Monaco win the league title.
After initially joining PSG on loan, his transfer fee became — and still is — the second largest in football history.
It came just weeks after PSG paid a world-record 222 million euros to sign Neymar from Barcelona.
PSG have dominated French football since their 2011 Qatari takeover, but despite also adding Lionel Messi to their line-up for two seasons, European success has remained tantalisingly out of reach for a club that has spent billions on some of the world’s best players.
The closest they came was the 2020 Champions League final defeat by Bayern Munich, when PSG academy graduate Kingsley Coman scored the winning goal against his former club.
The defeat to Dortmund this week ruled out the prospect of Mbappe facing his likely future employers, 14-time European champions Real Madrid, in this year’s final.
Mbappe did not find the net in that tie but has scored 43 goals in all competitions this season, with 26 of those coming in Ligue 1.
He will still hope to add to his club-record tally of 255 goals for PSG and win another medal in the French Cup final on May 25 — Mbappe has so far won six Ligue 1 titles, three French Cups and the now defunct League Cup twice in his seven years at his hometown team.
After Sunday’s game, PSG will complete their league campaign with away matches at Nice and at relegation-threatened Metz, before Mbappe wraps up his career with the club in that Cup final in Lille.
Mbappe was frozen out at the start of the campaign with the club putting pressure on him to sign a new deal or agree to be sold rather than simply run down the last year of his contract.
His relationship with PSG boss Luis Enrique has also come under the spotlight since he told the Qatar-owned club of his plans to leave earlier this year.
Now the worst-kept secret is out and Mbappe’s departure follows that of Messi and Neymar at the end of last season, which left PSG in a period of transition, but the loss of the France captain is an even greater blow.

TOKYO: Harry Kewell and Hernan Crespo will shake hands as head coaches with the Asian title on the line on Saturday, almost two decades after facing each other when Liverpool met AC Milan in the famous 2005 UEFA Champions League final.

Kewell is now in charge of Yokohama F. Marinos, the Japanese club hosting Al-Ain of the UAE on Saturday in the first leg of the Asian Champions League final series.

He was the victor in ‘05 when Liverpool recovered from a 3-0 deficit to triumph in a penalty shootout. Crespo scored two goals for Milan in Istanbul that day but ended as a losing finalist. He’s hoping to lift the Asian trophy at Al-Ain after the second leg on May 25.

Unlike Al-Ain, continental title winner in 2003 and finalist in ‘05 and ‘16, Yokohama has never before reached this stage of the continental club championship.

Kewell has led the five-time J.League winner through the knockout stages, including a comeback victory over Ulsan HD of South Korea in the semifinals.

After a 1-0 first leg loss in the semifinals, the 45-year-old Kewell — the third successive Australian to take charge of Yokohama following Ange Postecoglou and Kevin Muscat — invoked the spirit of Liverpool’s historic comeback 19 years ago.

“I was part of a special team that night that was able to come back from a scenario where a lot of people thought it was dead and buried,” Kewell said. “It just goes to show that a game is never finished, especially when you’ve got a hunger and a desire in a team.

“And I see that hunger and desire in this team to go out there and do something magical.”

Kewell’s coaching career is yet to reach the heights of his time as a player who starred for Leeds United and Liverpool in the English Premier League and represented Australia at the 2006 and 2010 World Cups. A stint with Crawley Town in England’s fourth division in 2017 was the first of his three short-term jobs head coaching before he arrived at Barnet, where he was fired after just seven games in 2021.

Invited by Postecoglou to join the coaching staff at Scottish giant Celtic in 2022, Kewell worked as an assistant there until he took over at Yokohama last December.

Victory in Asia could send the Sydney-born coach back into Europe.

Crespo, who won league titles in England and Italy as a player with Chelsea and Inter Milan, has already had success as a coach .

After winning trophies in South America, he led Al-Duhail to the 2023 Qatar league title. The season was blighted by a heavy 7-0 loss to Al-Hilal in the semifinals of last season’s Asian Champions League.

With Al-Ain, the 48 year-old Crespo got the better of the Saudi club at the same stage last month, winning 5-4 on aggregate in the semifinals.

Al-Ain went into that semifinal series on the back of a victory over another Saudi club — Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr.

“We talk so much about the two teams we eliminated because we were underdogs in the quarterfinals and semifinals, and we went through,” Crespo said. “We always need to say thankyou to the players, congratulations to the players. They believe, they work hard, they fight, and they deserve to go through … I’m very happy to be part of it.”