Mbappe donates $500,000 WC winnings to charity

French forward Kylian Mbappé is donating his World Cup winnings, totaling more than $500,000, to a charity for children with disabilities.

The 19-year-old French forward made roughly $22,300 each game this World Cup, plus a reported $350,000 bonus for winning the final on Sunday, which adds up to over $500,000.
It might only be a fraction of his total salary — he gets paid $1.7 million a month by his club team, Paris-Saint Germain — but half a million dollars could mean a lot to the Premiers de Cordees, an association that organizes sporting events for children with disabilities.

“Kylian, he's a great person,” said Sebastien Ruffin, general manager of Premiers de Cordee. “When his schedule allows it, he intervenes for us with pleasure. He has a very good [relationship] with children, he always finds the right [words] to encourage them. I sometimes even feel that [he] takes more pleasure to play with the kids than the kids themselves.”

Not too long ago, Mbappe was a boy himself, living in the poor Parisian suburb of Bondy and returning home after soccer practice to a bedroom adorned with posters of his idol, Cristiano Ronaldo. Now he is a starting forward for the French national team and the youngest player since Pele to score a goal in the World Cup final.

He officially joined PSG for a fee of $217 million, which is the second highest fee of all time; the record is held by his club-mate Neymar. He spent the last season there on loan from AS Monaco in an agreement that contained a clause allowing PSG to permanently sign him to their roster, CNBC reports.

"For a player so untested that figure seemed extraordinary when it was agreed, but it is increasingly coming to look like a bargain,” reports the Guardian.

Mbappe has proven himself this month at the World Cup. During his performance against Argentina, he earned France an early penalty kick after an impressive burst of speed — in order to stop his 60-yard sprint with the ball, the Argentinian defense resorted to dragging him down in the box. He later scored twice, becoming the first teenager to score multiple goals in the World Cup knockout stages since, once again, Pele in 1958.

France won the game 4 to 3, eliminating five-time Ballon D'Or winner Lionel Messi from the tournament.

Mbappe has also impressed at the club level. He contributed 13 goals and seven assists in just 28 League 1 appearances, helping PSG clinch the title.

Growing up in the northern Parisian suburb of Bondy, Mbappé practically lived at the local soccer club, where soccer pros asserted he was a star from day one.

"He was here as a baby when his father was a player and a coach," AS Bondy President Atmane Airouche told the BBC. "He was always here and learning about football, even as a toddler."

Mbappé's dad Wilfried, originally from Cameroon, is a soccer coach who started working with Mbappé when he was just a tot. His mother, Algerian-born Fayza Lamari, was also an impressive athlete, playing Division 1 handball in Bondy in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Mbappé's own generation is no exception to the sporty family tradition. His adopted older brother, Jirès Kembo, plays professionally for Turkey, and his little brother Ethan, seven years younger than Kylian, is a member of Paris Saint-Germain's under-12 team.