Frank Leboeuf has sharpened the debate over France’s leadership before the 2026 World Cup, saying Kylian Mbappe is not a leader in his eyes and is too selfish in his thoughts. The 58-year-old former France defender framed the criticism as a question of how the team should be run, not a judgment on Mbappe’s talent.
That is why the comments are landing now. France are viewed as one of the favourites for the 2026 World Cup, and if they go all the way it would be their third title and their first since 2018. Mbappe, 27, is expected to sit at the center of that push, which makes any doubt about his authority inside the squad immediately relevant.
Leboeuf said he met Mbappe only once, when the forward was 19 and had just signed for Paris Saint-Germain, but that brief encounter was enough for him to form a lasting view. He called Mbappe a superstar, yet said he is not the best teammate in the world and that his way of thinking about football does not match his own values of the game.
The former defender did not leave it there. He pointed to William Saliba and N'Golo Kante as players willing to sacrifice for the team, and he said Antoine Griezmann was a real leader because of the way he played and the way he thought about football. In Leboeuf’s eyes, that is the standard Mbappe has not met.
Leboeuf’s remarks also sit in the shadow of his own past. He was part of France’s 1998 World Cup team alongside Zinedine Zidane and Didier Deschamps, a side that won the tournament on home soil, and he said the current French squad is offensively better than that group. Even so, he stressed that it is hard to compare generations because football and refereeing are different now.
For France, the issue is not Mbappe’s place in the attack. It is whether the hierarchy around him is settled enough for a tournament that will define the next chapter of the team’s history. Leboeuf has made his view plain, and until France show who carries the authority when the pressure rises, the question will keep following them.
