Kylian Mbappé recalls turning down Liverpool despite talks with Jürgen Klopp

Kylian Mbappé has revealed he contemplated joining Liverpool back in 2017, but dismissed his agent and mother's appeals to relocate to Anfield in favor of a transfer to Paris Saint-Germain .

The Real Madrid forward was merely 18 years old when he sat down with Jürgen Klopp and Liverpool executives aboard a private aircraft, with the group conducting discussions while flying over Nice in Southern France.

Mbappé was representing AS Monaco at the time and would eventually reject the Reds' overtures to sign for PSG - completing the move to Paris via an initial loan arrangement that featured a mandatory £165.7 million (around $214 million) purchase clause, as per the Liverpool Echo .

However, the striker's agent and mother, Fayza Lamari, had been eager for him to join Liverpool instead.

"It was while I was playing in Monaco," he recalled to The Athletic . "I had to take a decision. And yes, I was close to Liverpool. My mum was a big fan of Jürgen Klopp and the favorite destination for my mum was Liverpool. She wanted me to go there.

"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. But yes, my mum was always saying, 'Liverpool - you're going to be there, playing at Anfield, it's going to be insane for you.' I was like, 'OK!'

"She went there (for) the first step of the negotiations. She went to the city, the stadium, she met the people. 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. She watched a few games alone, to feel the atmosphere, because she wanted to imagine me in this stadium.

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"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 Jürgen Klopp was an amazing manager. I met him and had a wonderful relationship with him. I had big respect for him."

Mbappé acknowledges he was drawn to the prospect of joining Klopp's Liverpool. However, in the end, he couldn't turn down the appeal of his boyhood club, as he revealed his reasons for declining the Merseyside side.

"I remember we were on the plane and we were turning around and around in the air while he (Klopp) was explaining his project. I said, 'You don't need to convince me. You're Jürgen 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.' 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. But 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."