Real Madrid star Kylian Mbappé is set to become one of Europe’s youngest club owners after he agreed on a deal to buy a majority stake in Ligue 2 side Caen in a €20 million deal.
The 25-year-old footballer will purchase most of the shares in the French club, while Pierre-Antin Capton, chairman of the supervisory board, will hold the rest of the capital, worth €5m, according to domestic press.
Negotiations between the parties have been ongoing for several weeks and are set to close soon, the Le Parisien newspaper reported.
The deal will see France’s star forward own 80% of the club — which finished last season in sixth place in the second division — replacing the previous majority shareholder, the US investment fund Oaktree.
Mbappé, following in the footsteps of David Beckham, is expected to appoint Ziad Hammoud, the current head of his brand image team, as the new president, along with his mother, Fayza Lamari.
The player reportedly nearly played for the Normandy-based club when he was younger
but ended up in AS Monaco’s academy instead.
The connection between Mbappe and Caen goes back to his youth. The club followed him closely when he was a young talent. They even offered him a training contract and a professional contract. But when Caen were relegated from Ligue 1 in the 2011/12 season, the deal fell through. Mbappe chose Monaco instead, where he began his professional career. Now he has returned to Caen in a different role and hopes to lead the club to success.
Now, more than ten years later, he is taking control of the team he once wanted to join, making him one of the youngest owners of a professional club in Europe. He will co-own Caen with Pierre-Antoine Capton, the president of the club’s board of directors.
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