Kylian Mbappé Reveals Close Liverpool Move 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 an 18-year-old phenomenon at Monaco, terrorising Ligue 1 defences and lighting up Europe. Liverpool tried to move early. They saw the future and wanted it in red.

Mbappé, now leading the line for Real Madrid and captaining France, told The Athletic that the Merseyside club were serious contenders for his signature before he chose Paris Saint-Germain.

“I was close to [joining] Liverpool,” he admitted. “The favourite destination for my mum was Liverpool. She wanted me to go there.”

The teenager had other ideas.

“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.”

His mother, though, had already been swept away by Liverpool and by Jürgen Klopp.

Mbappé described her as a “big fan” of the then Liverpool manager and revealed just how far she went in exploring the move. She flew to England for what he called the “first step” of negotiations, determined to see the club up close rather than rely on reputation.

“She went to the city, 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’.”

Then came Anfield.

“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.”

Liverpool, under Klopp, did everything they could. The German later recounted the lengths they went to, speaking as a pundit on Magenta TV during the 2026 World Cup. The club arranged a private jet from Blackpool to Nice, away from prying eyes.

From there, as Klopp told it, “the entire Mbappé family boarded a private jet with five rooms or something”. Liverpool rolled out the red carpet in the sky.

“We really went all out. Then we flew around in a circle, talked with the family, ate good food,” Klopp said. They wanted discretion, no cameras, no leaks. Just a manager, a club, and a family being courted at 30,000 feet.

The effort, though, could not change the outcome.

“We flew in a circle. It was fantastic. And then he went to Paris,” Klopp added, half amused, half resigned.

Mbappé laughs about it now. “It’s a funny story,” he said. But the decision, even at 18, was rooted in something deeper than contracts or commissions.

“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.”

PSG first took him on loan, with an option to buy for 180m euros (£165.7m) – a figure that underlined just how quickly his value had exploded. He stayed seven years in Paris, shattered scoring records and became the club’s all-time leading marksman before finally making the long-anticipated move to Real Madrid in 2024.

Liverpool were left with a story of what might have been, a private jet that flew in circles, and a mother who once stood alone in the Anfield stands, picturing her son in red instead of PSG blue or Madrid white.