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Julien Laurens, Correspondent
Real Madrid star Kylian Mbappé is about to become the new majority owner of French second division club Stade Malherbe de Caen, a source has confirmed to ESPN.
His takeover should be announced imminently, the source said, and it will make the 25-year-old the youngest active player to own a professional European football club.
The newly minted Real Madrid player will invest around €15 million via his own Coalition Capital investment fund to acquire 80% of the club’s capital and will also pay off part of the club’s debt.
Mbappé will replace the previous majority shareholder, the American investment fund Oaktree, which bought 80% of the club’s shares back in 2020. The remaining 20% of the capital is held by Pierre Antoine Capton, current president of the club’s supervisory board.
Caen are currently in Ligue 2 after having been relegated from the top flight in May of 2019.
The relationship between the Mbappés and Caen goes back a long way. In 2014, when Mbappé was 13, he almost signed for them before choosing Monaco.
The source said Caen is expected to name a new president in Ziad Hammoud. Hammoud is a close friend of the France captain and is in charge of his image rights company. Other close allies of Mbappé could also come in to hold other positions at the club, the source said.
It is not clear yet how much of his own money Mbappé will ultimately invest and what his ambitions for the club are, the source said.
Caen, a city located in Normandy, 240 km west of Paris, will start their Ligue 2 season on Aug. 17 against Paris FC, three days after Mbappé is due to make his debut for Real Madrid in the European Super Cup against Atalanta and a day before the start of the 2024 LaLiga campaign with a trip to Mallorca.