10 Footballers Who Rejected Chelsea

Much like his current PSG teammate, Kylian Mbappe had once came close to signing for Chelsea before going on to be one of the world's best players. Unlike Neymar however, Mbappe even played for the club, though admittedly it was in a youth team game against Charlton Athletic, during a short trial spell in West London.

Despite the club's interest, with Mbappe aged just 11 at the time of the trial, his parents feared that a move to a different country at such a young age would disrupt his schooling. Despite his protestations at the time, Kylian would later comment in an interview with The Players' Tribune about how his parents were right to prevent him from making the move:

"They wanted me to stay at home so that I could be a child and live a normal life. I didn’t understand it at the time, but it was actually the best thing for me, because I learned a lot of hard lessons that I would have never learned in a bubble at an academy.”

So, there you have it. Chelsea narrowly missed out on signing one of the brightest footballing talents in recent memory; not due to the usual roadblocks of fees or footballing politics, but thanks to the reservations of Mr and Mrs Mbappe.