French FA chief wants Kylian Mbappé at the 2024 Olympics

With just over one year to go until the Paris Olympic Games, one of the host country’s medal hopes will be in the football tournament – with the sport’s national deciders ready to pull out all the stops in order to give the team its best chance at clinching gold.

Paris Saint-Germain forward Kylian Mbappé has spoken several times about his desire to appear at the Olympics in his home town, despite the European Championships taking place in Germany during the same summer. 

In the wake of his election as president of the French FA, Philippe Diallo – who will see out the rest of former chief Noël Le Graët’s term, which ran until 2024 – has indicated that he intends to field a competitive France team in a year’s time, one which would include the senior team’s captain.

“We’ll have to put together the most competitive team, and we all have a name in mind who would increase our ambition tenfold. Kylian Mbappé has already spoken on the subject. He wants to take part. By way of their characteristics, the Olympics are a dream for athletes. And I think that with our best players, the team can step onto the podium. Kylian Mbappé is someone who chases records, and a gold medal would be a way for him to make history. It will be difficult to play in the Euros, the Olympics and Ligue 1 one after the other. But we haven’t had the Olympics here in a century.”

At the 2021 Olympics, a selection fiasco – which saw a number of teams refuse to let their young players leave for Tokyo – saw a depleted France team knocked out at the group stages.

GFFN | Raphaël Jucobin