Barcelona rejected Kylian Mbappe claims former agent Minguella
What's the Story?
In a recent interview, well known former agent Josep Maria Minguella has revealed that La Liga giants Barcelona had turned down a golden opportunity to sign French superstar Kylian Mbappe last summer.
In case you didn't know...
Josep Minguella is a well-known figure in Barcelona's history. He played a crucial role in bringing a young Lionel Messi at the club way back in 2000.
His other notable contributions for La Blaugrana include securing the services of Maradona and Stoichkov for the Catalan giants.
The former agent who says he has close ties with Barca, recently claimed that he had offered Mbappe to his former employers, when Neymar left the club for a world record fee.
Heart of the matter
In the TV show 'La Porteria', Minguella conceded that he was the person who approached Barca with the Mbappe deal on 5 August last year, but never heard back from them.
He believes that Barcelona had made a huge mistake in letting this opportunity slip through their hands and that it would haunt them for the next 10 years to come.
Sport quoted him saying:
On the 5th August[2017] I offered Mbappe to Barça. They didn't respond and now I believe they commited an error which will impact Barcelona for the next 10 years."
"His father told me that Kylian would've loved to have played alongside Leo Messi."
He had previously claimed that Mbappe expressed his desire to move to Camp Nou last year itself.
"Mbappe said he only wanted to sign for Barcelona when he learned that Neymar was going to go to PSG," he told Cope last year (h/t Marca).
In the same interview, he revealed that Mbappe would've loved playing alongside Messi.
Mbappe has been on a ridiculous growth trajectory ever since securing a move from Monaco to the French capital.
This season he has hit a rich vein of form for The Parisians scoring 13 goals in as many games across all competitions and also claiming 6 assists in the process.
Eventually, Barcelona opted for Borussia Dortmund's Ousmane Dembele, signing him on a €105m deal.
What's next?
With Mbappe setting Ligue 1 on fire right now, it remains to be seen whether rejecting the only chance to sign one of the world's best player was the right call from the Barcelona management or not.
Mbappe is now under contract until 2022 with PSG and reportedly earns a whopping £290,000-a-week.