Mbappe: ‘In 5 years’ time, you will come back for him for £50 million’

The letter is typed on AS Bondy headed paper, dated 17 May 2011. It gives permission for a 12-year-old French boy named Kylian Mbappe to attend a four-day trial the following week.

Mbappe was on his way to Chelsea.

The letter sent to Chelsea ahead of Mbappe's trial

The man who took him there was Daniel Boga, one of Chelsea's former scouts, who tells of a meeting that ended with Mbappe's mother saying Chelsea would live to regret their decision not to sign her son there and then.

Ultimately, Fayza Mbappe was proved right and the Paris Saint-Germain forward ended up being one that got away from Chelsea's point of view.

Clearly, hindsight is a wonderful thing. It is worth pointing out that plenty of parents may have made similar comments and their son was never heard of again. It would also be naive to think that Mbappe, at the age of 12, was nailed on to be a future superstar.

Indeed, Mbappe doesn't remember scoring in a resounding win over Charlton Athletic and, interestingly, the Chelsea players in his age group at that time can't recall the France international ever being with them. Many of them thought the story of his Chelsea trial was a hoax when contacted by The Athletic to ask for their memories.

Richard Nartey, who now plays for Salford City in League Two, started his career at Chelsea and is only three months older than Mbappe. “It was the same with Christian Pulisic when that came out (Chelsea posted a photo on Twitter of the U.S. international on trial at the club in 2010). Then I got sent a picture of him with all of us and I had no clue.”

Mbappe's trial in London came about after Boga, who is the brother of the former Chelsea winger Jeremie, received a tip-off from a contact at Nike. “He told me, 'Daniel, I think you should come to Paris, there's a young boy, he's called Kylian Mbappe, he's already signed a contract with me. You should see him',” Boga tells The Athletic.

Boga followed up the lead and went to watch Mbappe playing for Bondy, where the player's father, Wilfried, was the manager. Initially, Boga was impressed by what he witnessed in an 11-a-side match but not totally blown away.

What he didn't realise until later was that Mbappe was playing two years above his age. “I said, 'Oh, that makes a big difference. If he's good at under-14, that means in his own age group he will be something else',” Boga adds.

After speaking to Chelsea and Mbappe's parents, a trial was arranged towards the end of the 2010-11 season. Wilfried and Fayza accompanied Kylian, along with his older brother, Jires Kembo Ekoko, who was playing for Stade Rennais at the time.

They all stayed at a hotel in Cobham, just around the corner from Chelsea's training ground. “For four days I went there every day, speaking with them, to see how they felt about the atmosphere (at the club),” Boga says.

Back then, Mbappe was a starstruck schoolboy. He had his photo taken with Didier Drogba and, as he said in an interview with The Players' Tribune a couple of years ago, was so shocked to be going to Chelsea that he never told any of his friends about the trial until he returned to Paris. His team-mates at Bondy didn't believe where he had been until he showed them the Drogba picture on his father's phone.

Mbappe played one game for Chelsea during his trial, against Charlton. He told FourFourTwo magazine a few years ago that Chelsea won 6-0 or 7-0. “I played up front, but I don't think I scored,” he said. “It was great — it was my first experience abroad and a chance for me to see what the game was like in England.”

Boga went to watch and remembers Mbappe showing flashes of brilliance in the game. “When he has the ball… amazing. He pushes the ball and you can't see him anymore,” Boga says, laughing. “You could see that he had something special.”

At the same time, there was also a sense that Mbappe was fairly relaxed about the whole experience. “When he went to his trial, I don't think he saw that he had the opportunity to give everything to sign for Chelsea,” Boga adds.

It sounds like — and it is totally understandable if this was the case given Mbappe's age — the trial wasn't viewed as make-or-break for him and he adopted more of a 'let's see how it goes' approach to the four days.

“Exactly,” Boga adds. “And I think this attitude, Chelsea felt it. Because after the game finished, we were speaking in the office with Jim (Fraser, Chelsea's head of youth recruitment) and they said, 'Yeah, when he's got the ball he is amazing, etc. But we want to see this hunger'.”

Boga, who is now an agent, understood that message. “You know English football — you tackle, you track back players when you lose the ball. He wasn't like that. When he lost the ball, he stopped playing,” he explains.

“So Chelsea said, 'We want to see him again and we want to see this part of his football'.

“But then the mum said, 'No, we won't come again'. I was translating. “She said, 'Tell them, he won't come back. If you want to sign him, you sign him now'. And she said, 'In five years' time, you will come back for him for £50million'. She said, 'Translate that'.”

Mbappe scoring for France against Poland in Qatar (Photo: Michael Steele via Getty Images)

Boga shakes his head as he thinks back. “I can't say that. It's too arrogant to say something like this. So I didn't translate it. I just said to Jim, 'I don't think they will come back, so you have to make a decision now'. We tried to invite him back but he already had his plans to go to Clairefontaine (the national training centre for the best young players from the Ile-de-France region).”

It is hard to know whether Mbappe would have signed for Chelsea if the opportunity had presented itself, bearing in mind he was only 12 years old at the time.

Under article 19 of FIFA's rules, clubs are not permitted to sign players under the age of 18 from other countries or under the age of 16 for players moving within European Union countries, which was the case with Mbappe in 2011. The only way around that would have been for Mbappe's family to leave behind their life in Paris and relocate to England for non-footballing reasons.

Boga, who finished working for Chelsea in 2014, lost contact with Mbappe's family after a couple of years and watched the rest of the player's story unfold through the television.

Could he have ever imagined what Mbappe would become?

“I think, to be fair, when you spoke with the boy he knew clearly what he wanted to do. He wanted to be the best,” Boga says. “And from there you have the father behind him every time, telling him what he has to do, what not to do, tactically showing things, so they were already prepared. The mum was a professional handball player and the father was a coach. So everything was there.”