France superstar Kylian Mbappe has been linked with a move to Real Madrid, but the 24-year-old could easily have signed up for Barcelona a long time ago.

PSG signed Mbappe from Monaco back in 2017, and Barcelona were given the option of signing the Frenchman.

Surprisingly, Barcelona snubbed the proposal to sign Mbappe and rather went for Ousmane Dembele.

It wasn’t due to lack of money, as Neymar’s sale to PSG had given the club a lot of money.

Football agent Josep María Minguella, who has ties to FC Barcelona, has explained how it all happened.

He stated: “Barça received notice that Mbappé, who was in Monaco when they were selling players, would be delighted to come to Barça once Neymar’s departure assured him a spot.

“There are direct testimonies of this in the Barça board of directors and in the sports management headed by Raül Sanllehí. The decision on the Dembélé-Mbappé dilemma was clear. ‘Dembélé was a better fit,’ this was the phrase that Sanllehí told me.”

Former Barça director, Javier Bordás, also said a similar thing: “When we working on signing Dembélé Minguella called me to tell me Mbappé was available.

“I spoke to [Josep Maria] Bartomeu and he told me to look into it. I called [Mbappé’s] father and he told me that he wouldn’t go to Real Madrid because they already had Cristiano, Benzema and Bale there, but on the other hand, he would consider Barcelona because Neymar had left. The president of Monaco preferred that Mbappé move to Barcelona to avoid making PSG, a direct rival, stronger. And the deal was on the table for €100m.

“But Robert [former sporting director Fernández] preferred Dembélé and Pep Segura supported him. The reasoning they gave was that Mbappé played for himself and Dembélé played for the team. And as he was a winger like Ney, Robert said he preferred the idea of getting another winger instead of a goal-scorer.”