Kylian Mbappé's Near Transfer to Liverpool in 2017

Kylian Mbappé has finally lifted the lid on just how close he came to becoming a Liverpool player in 2017 – and how a private jet, a persuasive mother and a spellbound trip to Anfield still weren’t enough to pull him away from Paris.

Back then he was the teenage phenomenon at Monaco, the most coveted youngster in Europe, with the continent’s giants circling. Liverpool were among the boldest. For a brief moment, Merseyside felt like it might actually become his next home.

Klopp’s pitch at 30,000 feet

Jurgen Klopp did not settle for a simple meeting room and a PowerPoint. He took Mbappé into the sky.

The former Liverpool manager arranged a clandestine summit on a luxurious five-room private jet, using the unusual setting to sell his vision. It was extravagant, secretive, and absolutely deliberate: this was Liverpool throwing everything at a generational talent.

Mbappé remembers the scene vividly.

“I remember we were on the plane and we were turning around and around in the air while he was explaining his project,” he recalled, speaking to The Athletic. The pitch kept going, the aircraft circling as Klopp outlined how he would build around the young forward, how Liverpool could become his stage.

Mbappé’s response was respectful but firm.

“I said, ‘You don’t need to convince me. You’re Jurgen Klopp, it’s Liverpool, a great club, so of course if I’m here, I have some interest. But I have other things, other projects, that are also good’.”

He knew the magnitude of the choice in front of him.

“I said to him, ‘Whatever decision I take is going to be a good decision because we are talking about some of the biggest clubs in the world.’ It’s a funny story.”

For Liverpool, it was deadly serious.

A mother in love with Anfield

If Klopp was the football man making the case, the loudest voice in favour of Liverpool came from inside Mbappé’s own family.

The strongest push towards the Premier League came from his mother, who flew to Merseyside to feel the club for herself. She walked the city. She went to matches alone. She soaked in the noise and colour of Anfield and came back smitten.

“She went to the stadium, she met the people,” Mbappé said. “She was like, ‘It’s a wonderful club, everybody’s so kind, it’s a family club, a big club.’ She went to Anfield and fell in love with it.”

The conversations at home became relentless.

“All the time we were talking. ‘What do you think, Mum?’ She’d say, ‘For me, you have to go to Liverpool.’ I said, ‘OK, OK, OK!’ because Jurgen Klopp was an amazing manager. I met him and had a wonderful relationship with him. I had big respect for him.”

The pull was real. The project made sense. The atmosphere had done its work. Liverpool had a genuine shot.

The decision: home over Anfield

Then came the choice.

Despite the charm offensive, the private jet, the motherly lobbying and the Klopp factor, Mbappé turned Liverpool down. Paris called louder.

He chose PSG, initially on loan, then permanently for a staggering €180 million fee – one of the biggest transfers in football history. The move kept him in his home city and handed him the chance to become the face of a club determined to dominate France and challenge Europe.

“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.

For Liverpool’s hierarchy, it became the ultimate what-if. For PSG, it was the cornerstone of an era.

From Paris prodigy to global icon

The decision reshaped modern football. In Paris, Mbappé collected trophies at speed and turned domestic dominance into routine. With France, he wrote himself into World Cup history.

He famously lifted the World Cup as a teenager in 2018, exploding onto the global stage on the biggest platform of all. On the international front he kept climbing. At the 2026 World Cup he went past Miroslav Klose and Lionel Messi to become the tournament’s all-time top scorer, even though France fell to eventual champions Spain in the semi-finals.

By then he was no longer the kid courted on a circling jet. He was a global icon.

And finally, in 2024, he left home. After years of speculation, Mbappé completed his long-awaited move to Real Madrid, closing the Paris chapter that Liverpool once tried so hard to rewrite.

Somewhere in Merseyside, the memory of that jet, that meeting, and that near-miss still lingers.