Aston Villa have reached an agreement in principle with Paris Saint-Germain for Ibrahim Mbaye, according to The Athletic, in a deal reported to be worth an estimated €55m.
With the transfer window closing on 1 September, one of the most highly rated teenagers in French football is on the brink of leaving the club he joined as a ten-year-old.
It is the second major exit Paris are preparing to sign off in the space of a few days, and the second involving a forward Luis Enrique used regularly last season. For a club that has spent the summer reshaping its attack, it is also the clearest signal yet of how ruthlessly this new-model PSG is willing to trade.
What has been agreed
The Athletic report that the two clubs have settled on the principle of a deal at an estimated €55m.
That is not a signature, and it is not a medical. An agreement in principle means the selling and buying clubs have found common ground on the fee and the structure of it, with personal terms and the formalities still to be completed before anything becomes official.
What is striking is the reported reason it came together. Per the same report, the relationship between Aston Villa owner Nassef Sawiris and PSG chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi is believed to have been the key factor in getting the deal over the line.
The two clubs have done business before and their paths have crossed repeatedly this year: Villa sold Lucas Digne to Paris this summer, and the pair met in Salzburg in August, where PSG won the UEFA Super Cup 2-1.
Nothing about the fee should surprise anyone who has followed this saga. Villa’s interest was reported earlier in August, when they emerged as one of several English clubs circling. Liverpool had been credited with leading the race, and Manchester United were reported to have been handed an opening at around €50m. The number has climbed since, and the club that has ended up closest is the one whose ownership had the most direct line to the Parc.
Who is Ibrahim Mbaye?
Mbaye is an 18-year-old right-footed forward who joined Paris Saint-Germain from FC Versailles in 2018 and came through Les Rouge et Bleu’s academy. He was promoted into the first-team squad for the 2024/25 season and made his senior debut in August 2024.
Since then he has made 42 first-team appearances, scoring four goals and providing four assists. Last season he featured 30 times across all competitions for Luis Enrique’s side, including 11 starts, and was directly involved in five goals — three scored, two created.
Those are not headline numbers, and they were never meant to be. They are the numbers of a teenager being handed real minutes by a manager who had just won the Champions League and would go on to win it again. Very few 18-year-olds anywhere in Europe were given that much rope by a team of that standard, and fewer still took it without looking out of place.
Internationally he is already established. Mbaye is a Senegal international with 15 caps and four goals for the Lions of Teranga, a record that includes a goal against France at the 2026 World Cup — the kind of moment that turns a promising academy graduate into a name every recruitment department in the Premier League has on a list. He wears No.49 in the PSG squad for 2026/27.
The double exit Paris are about to sanction
Mbaye is not leaving alone. Bradley Barcola is expected to fly to England this weekend for a medical with Liverpool, according to reports in L’Équipe, with a deal between the clubs reported at around €140m. PSG had already agreed the framework of that transfer earlier in the week.
Both players were left out of the squad for the Ligue 1 opener away at Rennes, and neither featured as Ferran Torres came in and scored twice in a 2-2 draw. At the time that was read as a precaution around two unresolved futures. It now looks like the beginning of the end of both.
Between them, if both deals complete at the reported numbers, Paris would bank close to €195m for two attackers who cost the club a fraction of that. Barcola arrived from Lyon in 2023; Mbaye came through the academy, which makes his fee pure accounting profit. Add the €74m received from AC Milan for Gonçalo Ramos, the €38m from Juventus for Randal Kolo Muani and the €35m from Atlético Madrid for Lee Kang-in, and this has been the most aggressive selling summer in the club’s modern history — conducted, remarkably, by the reigning champions of Europe.
Does Luis Enrique have enough forwards?
This is the question that matters, and the honest answer is that Paris have restocked heavily — but they have also emptied a lot of shelves.
The incomings have been substantial. Maghnes Akliouche arrived from Monaco for a reported €50m, Ferran Torres from Barcelona for around €48.5m, and Mika Godts from Ajax for a fee reported in the region of €45m, with Digne coming the other way from Villa to strengthen the left side of the defence. Torres has already gone some way to justifying his fee with a debut double at Rennes.
Add those to a front line that already contains Ousmane Dembélé, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Désiré Doué, and the first-choice attack is arguably better stocked than the one that won back-to-back European titles.
The concern is depth in a season that leaves no room for it. Paris are defending both a Ligue 1 title and a Champions League, they enter the league phase as holders with eight fixtures to negotiate, and they have a FIFA Intercontinental Cup final on 16 December. Selling Barcola and Mbaye in the same week removes two players who between them covered the wide areas across dozens of matches last season, and the window shuts on 1 September — leaving almost no time to react if something goes wrong in September or October.
There is a squad-registration argument too. Club-trained players are valuable currency on a UEFA squad list, and Mbaye is exactly that. Losing him is not simply losing a forward; it is losing a name that helps the paperwork balance.
Why Villa, and why now
From Aston Villa’s side the logic is easy to follow. They have been a fixture in European competition, they have the financial room to move at this level, and they have the boardroom relationships to act quickly on a player half of the Premier League had been tracking since the spring.
Mbaye at 18, with 42 senior appearances for the European champions and 15 Senegal caps already banked, is the kind of asset that only becomes available in a very specific set of circumstances: a selling club with a stacked forward line, a player who wants regular football, and a fee large enough to make the decision straightforward for everyone in the room.
From the player’s perspective the case is simpler still. Behind Dembélé, Kvaratskhelia, Doué, Torres, Akliouche and Godts, the path to consistent starts in Paris this season was narrow to the point of theoretical. In Birmingham it would not be. For an 18-year-old with a World Cup goal against France already on his record and a Senegal shirt to hold on to, minutes are the whole argument.
What happens next
An agreement in principle is a long way past speculation and a short way short of done. Personal terms, a medical and the paperwork all still have to be completed, and with the deadline on 1 September there is limited margin for a late complication on either side.
Paris will expect it to go through. Villa will expect the same. Until it does, the sensible position is the one the reporting itself takes: the clubs agree on the shape of the deal, and everything after that is process.
What is not in doubt is the direction of travel. Paris Saint-Germain, back-to-back champions of Europe, are selling two of their own attackers inside a week to clubs in the Premier League, and doing it from a position of strength rather than necessity. Ten years ago this club could not have imagined being in that position. That, more than the fee, is the story.
This report is based on information published by Get French Football News, citing The Athletic. Squad and appearance details are published by Paris Saint-Germain, with fixture and competition detail confirmed by Ligue 1 and UEFA.
