Kylian Mbappe has admitted to calling his PSG teammate Neymar a “bum” after growing frustrated that the Brazilian was not passing the ball to him in the French side’s 2-0 win over Montpellier last month.
Mbappe vented his anger after he was substituted near the end of the Ligue 1 clash, with TV cameras picking up the France international mouthing the word “clochard” in Neymar’s direction, which translates to “bum” or “tramp”.
The 22-year-old says the pair have fallen out over not receiving passes before and insists that the feelings were quickly put to bed at the end of the match.
Asked in an interview with L’Equipe whether he called Neymar the word, Mbappe said: “Yes, yes, I said it. Now these are things which happen all the time in football. It just needs to be something that doesn’t linger.
“That’s why, right after, given how it blew up, I spoke to him about it. We already had a few exchanges like that in the past and it will continue, because we want to win, but there shouldn’t be a certain resentment.
“There isn’t any here at all because I respect the player and the man, and I admire what he is. But that’s it, I wasn’t happy with a pass. One day it happened to me too, I didn’t pass it and he wasn’t happy. But there’s no issue.”
Mbappe and Neymar have been teammates since 2017 and have been joined by Lionel Messi at the Parc des Princes this season.
But the World Cup winner looks set to join Real Madrid next summer and recently admitted that he asked to leave PSG during the previous transfer window.
Mbappe turned down offers from PSG to extend his contract while the French club rejected multiple bids from Real Madrid, the highest of which was a €200m (£172m) offer on deadline day.
“I asked to leave, because from the moment where I did not want to extend, I wanted for the club to receive a transfer fee so that they could bring in a quality replacement,” Mbappe said.
The forward has not scored in his last six matches, including on Saturday when Mauricio Pochettino’s side suffered their first defeat of the season to Rennes.
