Saudi Arabian side Al-Hilal have been granted permission to speak to Kylian Mbappe after making a world record £259m bid for the Paris Saint-Germain forward.

The France captain, who is 24 years old and has a year left on his contract, has refused to sign an extension at the French champions and was not picked for their pre-season trip to Japan.

Instead of letting Mbappe leave for free next summer, PSG would rather sell him now.

The record is Neymar’s move from Barcelona to PSG in 2017 for £200 million.

Neymar, a forward from Brazil, became the most expensive player in the world when PSG used his release clause.

If Mbappe moves, he will have been paid two of the three highest fees for a player. In 2017, he moved from Monaco to PSG for £166 million.

Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham, Inter Milan, and Barcelona have all shown interest in Mbappe. He has said he wants to leave PSG for free at the end of next season and is thought to prefer a move to Real Madrid.

PSG is open to the idea of Mbappe going out on loan this summer so that he can finish the last year of his contract somewhere else.

This would let him join Real Madrid for free in a year, play for the rest of this season, and earn PSG a loan fee.

Chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi has made it clear that he wants to take a hard line, and there have been rumours that Mbappe might not be chosen for a whole year if he doesn’t break the current stalemate. If that happened, it would be clear that it would hurt his chances of playing for France at Euro 2024.

Al-Hilal are one of the clubs owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and they have already signed the likes of Ruben Neves from Wolves and Kalidou Koulibaly from Chelsea.

Photo by EPA/MOHAMMED BADRA