Like all easily recognisable multi-millionaire footballers, Kylian Mbappe was in his element carousing at a nightclub in one of Europe’s smartest capital cities.
V nightclub in Stockholm, which boasts having ‘a ridiculously exclusive guest list’, was full of beautiful young women mingling with the rich and famous on red leather banquettes under silver chandeliers.
Mbappe, 25, who earns an estimated ÂŁ90million a year as captain of France and Real Madrid’s star striker, partied hard at the club during a break between matches earlier this month. Though suffering a thigh injury, he danced with several women.
However, like so many star footballers before him, Mbappe’s after-hours behaviour is under intense scrutiny. Swedish prosecutors have been looking into claims that he allegedly raped one of the women he met there.
The alleged victim – who cannot be named for legal reasons – is said to have been attacked in Mbappe’s eighth-floor penthouse suite at the nearby Bank Hotel.
He has denied that happened but, The Mail on Sunday can reveal, he does admit to sleeping with someone he had just met at the club through a VIP fixer.
He insists they had ‘consensual sex’, saying he exchanged ‘happy, positive’ text messages with the woman next morning, before flying to Corsica on a private jet with male friends.
Kylian Mbappé leaves the Bank hotel where he has stayed during his visit to Stockholm in October. Swedish prosecutors have been looking into claims that he allegedly raped one of the women he met in the country during his stay
The alleged victim – who cannot be named for legal reasons – is said to have been attacked in Mbappe’s eighth-floor penthouse suite at the nearby Bank Hotel (pictured)
The revelations are made in an exclusive report in Le Parisien, the highly respected daily news outlet with which Paris-born Mbappe is known to have close ties.
Le Parisien’s coverage largely supports the view that the footballer is innocent of any wrongdoing, in contrast to less supportive reporting in Sweden.
When claims about an alleged rape first appeared in Aftonbladet, one of the largest and oldest papers in Scandinavia, Mbappe called them ‘Fake News!’ on X, where he has more than 14 million followers.
He also referred to a legal fight with Paris St Germain – his home city club that he left in the summer to join Real Madrid – over ÂŁ46million in unpaid wages.
‘So predictable,’ Mbappe fumed, stoking conspiracy theories that his alleged accuser is part of a deeply sinister set-up.
The idea that anyone at his former team was behind any dirty tricks sounds fanciful but there is no doubt that wealthy footballers such as Mbappe are always braced for so called honey-traps.
Others at the centre of protracted rape scandals in recent years include Cristiano Ronaldo, the world’s highest paid footballer.
A criminal prosecution was avoided for the Portuguese star after he paid ÂŁ275,000 to the woman who had accused him of allegedly raping her in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2009.
Mbappe, who won the World Cup with France in 2018, is involved with numerous charity projects, including ones aimed at helping underprivileged youngsters in the deprived Paris suburbs
His most high-profile girlfriend to date was Ines Rau, a 34-year-old French model who was L’Oreal’s first transgender ambassador
Ronaldo was a Real Madrid player at the time, too, and the club took legal action against a Portuguese newspaper when it reported that Madrid had settled with the woman, saying such a claim ‘seriously damaged the image of the club’.
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In cases like these, such hush money is often believed to have been offered to avoid damaging court action. Last week a source at Madrid indicated that there is ‘extreme disquiet’ that Mbappe has already brought a ‘Ronaldo-style rape scandal’ to their door.
Mbappe, who won the World Cup with France in 2018, is involved with numerous charity projects, including ones aimed at helping underprivileged youngsters in the deprived Paris suburbs. He displays a social and political conscience, warning of the ‘catastrophic’ rise of the far-Right in a France blighted by racism and sexism.
So the rape accusations risk harming Mbappe’s clean-cut image.
Swedish criminal inquiries are secret – Mbappe has not been formally named as a suspect – but plenty of allegations have been published in Stockholm.
‘Mbappe is not untouchable here,’ one Swedish investigator told The Mail on Sunday, adding that the testimony made against him was ‘very shocking and being taken extremely seriously’.
The source said: ‘Items of clothing, including pants and a black top belonging to the alleged victim, were taken away from the Bank Hotel on October 11, along with other potential evidence.’
His lawyers insist Mbappe (pictured) is bewildered by the rape accusations that he continues to strongly refute
Mbappe shared a newspaper article on the alleged rape on X and wrote: ‘Fake News!’
The alleged rape is said to have taken place in the early hours of that Friday.
The woman checked herself into hospital ‘in a state of extreme distress’, said the source.
Crucially, the burden of proof in a Swedish rape case is loaded in favour of a complainant. A 2018 law was designed to support the #MeToo movement and states that a suspect has to prove consent. This means there is no presumption of innocence for rape, for which the maximum term is six years jail,or ten if there are aggravating circumstances.
Any video footage would be hugely important in the Mbappe case – both the V and Bank Hotel have many surveillance cameras – along with the recollections of Mbappe’s travelling companions. Foremost among them is Nordi Mukiele, Mbappe’s close friend from Paris, who is said to have arranged the Stockholm jaunt to help the star recover from injury.
Like Mbappe, Mukiele, 26, grew up in the northern Paris suburbs.
He is still on the books of Paris St Germain (PSG) but on loan at German club Bayer Leverkusen.
‘Nordi spends lots of time with Kylian,’ said a PSG source. ‘Kylian likes to hang out with the lads – it keeps life simple and helps him to unwind from the pressure of being an international star.’
Mbappe’s intermittent relationships with women might make him a relatively easy target for honey-trappers. His most high-profile girlfriend to date was Ines Rau, a 34-year-old French model who was L’Oreal’s first transgender ambassador. But there was little evidence of them spending much time together.
Mbappe flew in on a private jet earlier this month before checking in to the swanky Bank hotel (pictured)
Earlier this month, the Real Madrid star visited the Chez Jolie restaurant (pictured left after leaving the restaurant with his friends), before heading to the V nightclub and finally back to his hotel in a black van with his entourage
Like Mbappe, Rau is of African descent and is said to have enjoyed a brief yacht holiday with the footballer, while also going to the Cannes Film Festival with him.
Typically, however, Mbappe did not display any serious commitment in public, preferring to keep his private life secret, before they split sometime over the last two years.
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Since then, Mbappe is said to have relied on Marco Djelevic, a former model turned VIP fixer, to arrange his social life.
Djelevic’s part in the trip to Sweden has been examined at length in the investigation by Le Parisien. The newspaper claims Djelevic provided a ‘luxury concierge service’ and offered Mbappe and his friends ‘the exclusive company of young women invited, based on essentially aesthetic criteria’.
(In short; only good-looking women required.)
Leaving the V in Stockholm with one of these companions on his second consecutive night at the club, Mbappe had sex with her at the Bank Hotel, the newspaper reported. ‘This relationship would have suffered from no ambiguity, not only in the mind of the Frenchman, but also in that of his partner for the evening,’ the report read.
The report adds that phone messages were exchanged between the pair and they have ‘a very positive tone, which tells the story of a happy meeting and a consensual relationship’.
Like many A-listers, Mbappe is known to brief sympathetic media outlets and in this case his only complaints about reporting have been aimed at two Swedish titles – Aftonbladet and Expressen. The Swedes have been threatened with defamation actions but there has been no reaction to what was in Le Parisien.
The paper’s investigation, which went up behind a paywall on October 16, with reporting credits from Paris and Stockholm, remains published without correction.
Kylian Mbappe training at Real Madrid’s Valdebebas training ground on October 15
Le Parisien concedes its inquiry contains ‘potentially positive elements for [Mbappe’s] defence’, while accepting that they will be ‘analysed with caution’ in any possible future prosecution. It writes: ‘Nothing allows us to affirm at this stage that the complainant is the author of the messages sent to Kylian Mbappe during the day on Friday.
‘Indeed, the Real Madrid striker may have got physically close to another person during his first or second night in Stockholm.
‘Even if no sexual relations were then consummated, ambiguous gestures or other acts on the part of Mbappe could be blamed on him and characterise a possible offence of rape or sexual harassment.’
Mbappe’s lawyers declined to comment on Le Parisien’s article, but one of them, Marie-Alix Canu-Bernard, said her client was ‘never alone’. She added: ‘He is never put in a position where he ends up in a situation that would lead to him taking a risk. As a result, that totally rules out any possibility of reprehensible actions on his part. I can tell you that with absolutely certainty.’
In which case, a key question for prosecutors will be how many people were staying with Mbappe in the penthouse at the Bank Hotel, and what they witnessed.
Ms Canu-Bernard has speculated the case is a ‘set-up’, saying: ‘Someone knew that [Mbappe] was going to Stockholm.’
She noted that Mbappe was photographed by paparazzi over the two days and that Aftonbladet first published the images of him on the streets of Stockholm, even though no women are present. ‘As if by chance, the same newspaper [Aftonbladet] published a report in which it was stated that a complaint had been filed,’ said Ms Canu-Bernard.
She nonetheless welcomed the investigation led by prosecutor Marina Chirakova.
She said that was because ‘nothing happened – and if it is indeed him [who is a suspect], because there were many [men] in Stockholm – and since there are 10,000 cameras in a hotel, all the better’.
She added: ‘As we have seen in other recent stories of sportsmen abroad, thanks to the cameras and the corridors of the hotels, we can know exactly what happened or did not happen.’
Mbappe was part of the French team that won the World Cup in 2018 and has scored 48 goals in 86 caps for his country, making him the third highest scorer for France of all time
Ms Canu-Bernard said that a complaint proved nothing and that she was preparing to hit back with a claim for defamation against accusers.
This is a common tactic in France where rape is a very high-profile issue following the shocking ‘Monster of Avignon’ court case, where 50 men are on trial for allegedly raping a 72- year-old wife who was repeatedly drugged by her husband over a decade.
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The #MeToo movement has also had a huge effect on a traditionally macho French society, where a blind eye was once turned on sexual abuse of all kinds, especially when committed by rich and powerful celebrities.
As the Mbappe case continues, plenty of friends and colleagues are speaking out in his support, while conceding that the scandal is not helping his career.
These include the manager of the French national football side Didier Deschamps who said: ‘Everyone is free to write what they want but there is a negative atmosphere around the French team.
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Mbappe missed playing in France’s victory over Israel on the night of the alleged rape.
And news that he was partying in Sweden, aside from the rape allegation, has triggered a debate about his commitment to the national team.
There is also disappointment in Madrid at a sluggish start to Mbappe’s new club career in Spain. However, a claim that Real Madrid officials held a ‘crisis meeting’ to discuss the rape allegations has been denied.
For now, while their star striker remains unnamed by police, the denials come easy but the club will fear, from painful experience, a more difficult road ahead.
