Kylian Mbappé wins legal battle with Paris Saint-Germain and receives 61 million euros

Everything is big about this case, including the first round winner. Kylian Mbappé, superstar of contemporary French football, has, as an employee, won the titanic dispute against his former employer for the time being. Paris Saint-Germain must pay the player 60.9 million euros – immediately, without delay. This is what the Paris Labor Court decided. It provided the verdict with the clause “exécution provisoire”: Even if there is an appeal, which is very likely in this case, the sentence will not be postponed.

Kylian Mbappé, who played for PSG, his hometown club, for seven years until his free transfer to Real Madrid in the summer of 2024, sued the sports judiciary for 55 million euros in unpaid salaries and bonuses soon after the move. When this step yielded no results, he took the case to the labor court, probably assuming that the influence of the large and rich club owned by Qatar would not be as strong as in the sporting authorities.

But Mbappé then presented himself to the labor court with completely different demands: 263 million euros. It was no longer just about the fixed and variable compensation for his last months of work, which PSG did not want to pay him. But also about illegal employment, unfair dismissal and bullying, among other things. Suddenly it was a classic employment law dispute between two parties, albeit with unusual sums of money.

PSG decided to top the demands with an even higher one, a legal counter-strategy with infantile features: 440 million euros. The club argued that Mbappé had already reached a silent agreement with Real Madrid a year before the move, hidden in order to deprive PSG of the transfer fee. PSG now demanded compensation of 180 million euros for this secret number. In addition, the club’s management claimed that they had already reached an agreement with a Saudi club that would have paid 180 million euros to take over Mbappé. In addition, 60 million euros for insincere contract management and 20 million for the damage to the company’s image.

So both sides rocked each other up. On the day of the hearing it was said to be louder in the court than they had ever experienced there before. Before the verdict was announced, people in France wondered whether the court might decide in a Solomonic way: half-and-half, so that something would stick on both sides.

To Mbappé, because he hasn’t always been as motivated at PSG in recent years and it has long been assumed that he would like to move to Madrid to Real, the club of his childhood dreams. PSG, it was thought, would also be punished for the fact that it paid its employees handsomely, but in return demanded absolute, almost non-negotiable loyalty – sometimes possibly exceeding the level set by labor law.

Things turned out differently. The court rejected all of PSG’s arguments. And from Mbappé she only considered those demands that concerned his remuneration to be valid: salary, bonuses, paid vacation. So 61 million euros. In a communiqué, the player’s legal team wrote: “This ruling restores a simple truth: even in the world of professional football, labor law applies to everyone.”

Does this have what it takes to become a precedent? The saga is probably not over yet.