PARIS :France soccer captain Kylian Mbappe’s legal team have appealed to the French sports minister and UEFA for his former club Paris St Germain to pay him 55 million euros ($61.25 million) in unpaid wages and said several of the club’s accounts had been frozen on Thursday.
“We’re going to go on the attack,” Delphine Verheyden, Mbappe’s lawyer, told a press conference.
The French League (LFP) ordered PSG to pay the player last year but the French Football Federation ruled that Mbappe’s request was inadmissible because of an ongoing procedure in a civil court.
Mbappe’s legal team, however, have turned to a Paris court to freeze 55 million euros in PSG’s accounts.
“We have protectively seized the accounts of PSG, to the tune of 55 million euros, this morning,” Thomas Clay, one of Mbappe’s legal experts, said.
PSG were not immediately available to comment but said in October that they would be “forced to bring the case before the competent courts” while they were still trying to find an “amicable solution” with Mbappe.
In January last year, Mbappe said he had made an agreement with PSG chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi which would “protect all parties and preserve the club’s serenity for the challenges ahead.”
Mbappe became PSG’s all-time top scorer during his seven-year stay in the capital but the 26-year-old joined Real Madrid as a free agent last year.
PSG had also said that Mbappe had refused an offer from the LFP to mediate on the issue.
Another lawyer, Pierre-Olivier Sur, said they had filed a complaint for harassment, claiming PSG put pressure on Mbappe to extend his contract in 2023, one year before it ended.
The Ligue 1 champions, however, argue that Mbappe’s contract was “legally amended” and that the forward had reneged on commitments when he left the Paris club to join Real Madrid.
“The case is only indirectly linked with us in terms of possible arrears of payment,” a spokesperson for European soccer’s governing body UEFA told Reuters on Thursday.
“If a final decision is taken by the French authorities and confirms that there are indeed arrears … the club would then have to pay the arrears on time or risk non-compliance with financial fair play.”
($1 = 0.8979 euros)
