Reports of Mbappe demanding £600,000 per week in wages from PSG have been doing the rounds this week
Liverpool may have foreseen their chances in landing Kylian Mbappe in the summer narrowing or completely battered with news that the Frenchman wants improved wages at Paris Saint-Germain.
Mbappe has been on a contract extension saga with his French employers and the 22-year-old will be bound to change club if terms are not met early before his looming contract expiration.
But the question is whether clubs in and out of Europe will be willing to pay such huge amount to book Mbappe's service in the summer.
Every big club in Europe would want Kylian Mbappe on their team. He's a generational talent and set to dominate the top of the sport for years to come.
But When wage demands are enough to potentially scare off high payers like Manchester City and Real then you know that the likelihood is your efforts are doomed to fail, no matter how many kind words are exchanged back and forth.
Reports of £600,000 per week in wages have been doing the rounds this week, a figure likely to not be too far from the truth given Mbappe's employers Paris Saint Germain recently tied the Frenchman's strike partner Neymark Jnr to a longer deal worth a reported £500,000 per week.
City, like Liverpool, have been linked with Mbappe. At a time when clubs like Barcelona and Real Madrid are actually having to watch the pennies the transfer market has been opened up to those who can dig deeper.
But that has never been Liverpool's Fenway Sports Group way. There has never been major spend that hasn't been underpinned by considerable money recouped through player sales.
In some respects it seemed like the stars were aligning. The Nike kit deal, the strong LeBron James connections through their Nike marketing strategy as 'The Chosen Two'.
Two things that would have worked in Liverpool's favour you would have thought.
In fairness, most Liverpool fans would have realised that the reality of bringing Kylian Mbappe to Anfield was something that had little chance of getting off the ground.
His wage demands, the fee that would have been needed to prize him from PSG and the prospect of not even being able to offer European football next season all point to a big no.
What it has done is removed the question and possibly even taken the spotlight off the idea.