Mbappe reveals his mother pushed him to join Liverpool over PSG in 2017

Kylian Mbappe came within touching distance of joining Liverpool in the summer of 2017, the Real Madrid forward has revealed, with his mother and agent Fayza Lamari a driving force behind the near-move. Mbappe, then 18 and playing for Monaco, held a private meeting with Jurgen Klopp aboard a private jet over the south of France before ultimately choosing a loan move to Paris Saint-Germain instead.

Speaking in an interview with The Athletic, Mbappe described how Lamari had visited Anfield independently to gauge the atmosphere and returned convinced her son should sign. “She went to Anfield and fell in love with it. She watched a few games alone, to feel the atmosphere, because she wanted to imagine me in this stadium,” he said.

Lamari’s enthusiasm was consistent throughout the process. “All the time we were talking. She’d say, ‘For me, you have to go to Liverpool’,” Mbappe recalled. “Jurgen Klopp was an amazing manager. I met him and had a wonderful relationship with him. I had big respect for him.”

Despite the pressure from his mother and a warm personal connection with Klopp, Mbappe’s attachment to his home city proved the decisive factor. “In the end I took the decision to go to PSG because for me, born and raised in Paris, there was no better feeling than to show I could be a star in my home town,” he said.

Klopp had previously acknowledged the meeting earlier this year, describing it to German outlet Magenta TV as “the most expensive non-transfer we ever made” — a reference to the extraordinary fee PSG eventually paid to sign Mbappe permanently the following summer.

Mbappe joined PSG on loan for the 2017-18 season before completing a permanent transfer, spending seven years in Paris before moving to Real Madrid in 2024. The disclosure adds a striking footnote to Liverpool’s history under Klopp, who came closer than previously known to landing one of the generation’s defining talents.