France's captain and its biggest club are at war. With no sign of a ceasefire in sight the battle between Kylian Mbappe and Paris Saint-Germain rages on.
Here, Mail Sport's MIKE KEEGAN examines an explosive feud that has split the country and captured headlines across the world.
He finds allegations of betrayal, naivety, staggering amounts of cash and a relationship that appears to be beyond rapprochement.
For Paris Saint-Germain it is simple. In May 2022, Kylian Mbappe agreed a contract extension to remain with his hometown club until 2025. He went onto the pitch at the Parc des Princes with president Nasser Al-Khelaifi and the grinning pair held aloft a shirt with 'Mbappe 2025' on the back.
The crowd, on a Spring evening of celebration in the French capital after another Ligue 1 title, roared its approval. Metz would be thrashed 5-0, with Mbappe scoring a hat-trick. All was well, and then all went to hell.
Less than two months after that happy day, Mbappe wrote a bombshell letter which the club did not receive until June of this year. In it, the 24-year-old bluntly informed his fellow shirt-holder he would not be taking up the offer of an additional 12 months on his new two-year deal and would, in fact, be leaving at the end of 2024.
Effectively, a £250million asset in which they had invested more than half a billion euros, after a £166m move which saw him initially join on loan from Monaco in 2017, would stroll out of the door for free. 'Please accept, Mr President, the expression of my respectful sentiments,' the letter starkly concluded.
For PSG, this is the case of a greedy footballer who has gone back on his word. A player they are convinced has a secret agreement with Real Madrid in place, to cross the Pyrenees at the
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