Kylian Mbappé's Near Move to Liverpool in 2016
Kylian Mbappé has lifted the lid on just how close he came to becoming a Liverpool player in 2016 – and how he ignored the wishes of his mother, who “fell in love” with Anfield.
Back then he was 18, a frightening young talent at Monaco, already tearing up Ligue 1 and drawing covetous glances from across Europe. Liverpool made their move. They were serious.
Jurgen Klopp was still building his first great side at Anfield and, as he later revealed, the club rolled out the red carpet. Speaking as a pundit on Magenta TV during the 2026 World Cup, the former Liverpool manager recalled how a private jet was laid on to court the Mbappé family.
A flight went from Blackpool to Nice, where, as Klopp put it, “the entire Mbappe family boarded a private jet with five rooms or something”. They flew, they talked, they ate well. They even circled in the air to avoid being spotted in negotiations. Liverpool pushed as hard as they could.
“We really went all out,” Klopp said. “Then we flew around in a circle, talked with the family, ate good food.”
The charm offensive, though, hit a dead end. “We flew in a circle. It was fantastic. And then he went to Paris.”
Mbappé, now 27 and at Real Madrid, can smile about it. “It’s a funny story,” he told The Athletic. But the sliding doors moment was real.
“I was close to [joining] Liverpool,” he admitted. “The favourite destination for my mum was Liverpool. She wanted me to go there.”
His mother, a “big fan” of Klopp, went even further than that. She made the trip herself.
Mbappé described how she travelled to Merseyside for what he called the “first step” of negotiations. She walked the city. She went to the stadium. She met the people.
“She went to the city, the stadium, she met the people. She was like, ‘it’s a wonderful club, everybody’s so kind, it’s a family club, a big club’,” Mbappé said.
Then came Anfield. That was where it really hit her.
“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.”
You can picture the scene: a mother in the stands, listening to the noise, trying to see her son in red, sprinting towards the Kop. She could see it. She wanted it.
Mbappé heard all of it. And chose something else.
“I didn’t listen because I wanted to play in my city, Paris. I didn’t want to leave my country before I was someone,” he said. “But yes, my mum was always saying, ‘Liverpool – you’re going to be there, playing at Anfield, it’s going to be insane for you’.”
In the end, the pull of home proved stronger than the lure of Anfield or Klopp’s project. Mbappé joined Paris St-Germain instead, initially on loan from Monaco in a deal that included an option to buy for 180m euros (£165.7m). It became permanent, and he spent seven years in Paris, rising from prodigy to superstar and finishing as PSG’s record goalscorer.
Only in 2024 did he finally leave his hometown club, walking away for Real Madrid with his legacy in Paris already sealed.
Looking back, he has no regrets about turning Liverpool down.
“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 hometown,” he said.
Liverpool were left with a story about a private jet and a near-miss. Mbappé left with a career that might have looked very different had he followed his mother’s heart instead of his own.
