Summer after summer, the heat is on Kylian Mbappé, Real Madrid and a switch that has never happened before. Why that was, and when it won’t be, a member of the royal’s board has now told
José Manuel Otero Lastres is probably not a household name for many football fans. He is a member of Real Madrid’s board of directors, but admittedly operates in the background at the Royal League – until now. In a conversation with the online platform “Remontada Blanca”, Otero Lastres really got into a chatty mood. The topic: Kylian Mbappé and the vacant centre-forward position at the Spanish record champions.
Most recently, a move for the exceptional attacker had been on the cards, especially in the summer of 2022, when he finally extended his contract in Paris, and also in the summer of 2023, but the deal has not yet been finalised. This year, the main reason for this was that the Royal League did not make any serious efforts to sign the 24-year-old Frenchman. Otero Lastres can justify this.
Mbappé would have had to give up a lot of money in 2023
“The amount we would have had to pay to get him a year earlier was crazy,” the board said. Mbappé’s current contract expires on 30 June 2024, after which he would be free on loan. A year earlier, the object of desire would also have had to “forgo very high bonus payments that he had agreed with PSG”. A transfer in the summer of 2023 – unlike in 2022, when Real really wanted Mbappé – “simply didn’t make sense”. Makes sense.
Otero Lastres assures us that the Blancos are not fed up with all the transfer fuss: “Real Madrid have always left the doors open.” President Florentino Perez is not offended either. The next sentence from the board, once again appeasing, then became really exciting: “Zidane once came at 29, Mbappé will come at 25. He still has many years left with us.” 25 would be Mbappé next summer.
Is Mbappé a better fit for Real than Haaland?
A man from inside Real Madrid not only announces what would then be the most spectacular transfer of the coming summer as a matter of course, he even dates it quite precisely. From the royal point of view, it would be the most sensible time after years of financial cat-and-mouse. And Mbappé would be the most sensible Benzema successor for Otero Lastres: “He fits Real’s game better than Haaland. The whole team has to play for the Norwegian to score. “
