Former central defender of Paris Saint-Germain and the French team Mamadou Sakho, without a club for several months, announced this Monday, January 12, the end of his professional career at the age of 35. The player made this announcement on the lawn of the Parc des Princes before the kick-off of the 16th final of the Coupe de France between PSG and Paris FC, with whom he started football. “I wanted to thank everyone. I wanted to announce the official end of my career. Thanks to the Park. Thanks to Paris FC. Without Paris FC, for me, there is no PSG behind,” he declared. Trained and revealed with PSG (201 matches), he was the youngest captain in the history of Ligue 1, at 17 years and 8 months in October 2007 for his first start in the Championship. He then went to Liverpool (2013-2017) and Crystal Palace in England, before returning to France with Montpellier in 2021. He terminated his contract by mutual agreement with the MHSC (49 matches) in November 2023 after an altercation with his coach Michel Der Zakarian. With the Blues (29 caps), his main feat remains his double at the Stade de France in the return play-offs of the 2014 World Cup against Ukraine which qualified the Blues for the World Cup in Brazil (3-0, 0-2 in the first leg). In April 2016, after testing positive for a fat burner, Sakho was provisionally suspended by UEFA for a period of 30 days, which deprived him of the Europa League final with Liverpool and the final phase of Euro 2016 before being cleared in July 2016. He had been without a club for several months after playing for the Georgian club Torpedo Kutaissi during the season 2024-2025.
