AC Milan‘s Zlatan Ibrahimovic has questioned Kylian Mbappe‘s decision to stay at Paris Saint-Germain and warned him that “you are never bigger than a club.”
Mbappe snubbed a move to Real Madrid to sign a three-year extension with the French champions in May and became the highest-paid player in world football, according to ESPN sources.
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According to Forbes, Mbappe will earn $128 million for the 2022-23 season — a record for the magazine’s annual rankings — but former PSG star Ibrahimovic has hit out at the forward’s decision to stay.
“Mbappe, as a person I do not know him very well. As a player, he is fantastic,” Ibrahimovic told Canal Plus. “But when you lose discipline, you lose your identity.
“There is a reason why Zidane is Zidane. Mbappe wants to imitate him? That he starts to want to progress. Not to be satisfied.
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“He made the right choice for Paris not for himself. Because he put himself in a situation where he is more important than the club. And the club gave him the keys for that. But you are never bigger than a club. But when a child becomes strong, he can easily earn money.”
The 23-year-old recently rejected reports that he wanted to leave PSG in January that claimed his relationship with the club had broken down.
Ibrahimovic, who spent four years at the club where he won 12 trophies, blamed Mbappe’s advisers for turning his transfer situation into a saga over the summer.
“So his parents become lawyers, agents, coaches. From one thing they become another,” he added. “And that’s the problem. That’s when you lose your self-discipline and who you are.
“Today with this new generation, the parents, dad, mom, who you want, they think they have become stars. They talk in the newspapers. But who do you think you are? Shut up. It is up to your son, the player, to work and have discipline.”