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Saudi Arabian soccer club Al Hilal has submitted a world-record bid of over $332 million (300 million euros) for Paris Saint Germain (PSG) striker Kylian Mbappé, according to multiple reports on Monday. The 24-year-old has been left out of PSG’s squad for its preseason tour of Japan, with the club having issued him an ultimatum to sign a new contract or be sold. CNN has reached out to PSG, Al Hilal and Mbappé’s representatives for comment. The current world record fee is $262 million (€222 million) when Neymar moved from Barcelona to PSG in 2017.Despite publicly declaring he wants stay in Paris for the upcoming 2023/24 season, Mbappé is said to be unhappy in the French capital. According to multiple reports in June, Mbappé informed PSG that he will not be exercising his third-year option in his contract, leaving the club with a decision to make – sell their star player this summer or let him walk for free in 2024.<snip>Last month, the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) announced that Al Hilal was one of four Saudi clubs that have been transformed into companies, each of which is owned by PIF and non-profit foundations for each club. The PIF is a government-controlled fund that has $650 billion in assets under management, according to its most recent filing. It is aiming to top $1 trillion within a few years. A state-owned investment fund like the PIF is not unique. It is ranked only the seventh-largest in the world, according to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute. While some of those are pension funds for a country’s citizens or public employees, others, like the PIF, operate the way a private sector investment firm might, trying to make money through a diversified portfolio of investments. But what makes Saudi Arabia’s fund different from those private investment firms is that since the country faces widespread condemnation for its human rights record, its investments in sports and other entertainment companies can be seen as “sportwashing” – an attempt to polish that tarnished reputation.
