Erling Haaland earmarked as Real Madrid’s €150m Benzema replacement
Robin Bairner
- 18 Jun 2022 10:58 BST
- 3 min read
Real Madrid will replace Karim Benzema with Erling Haaland in 2024, according to reports from Spain.
Florentino Perez, president of Los Blancos, revealed this week that the club never have had a serious interest in the Norway international striker this summer because of the form of Benzema, who scored 44 goals in all competitions.
Haaland, meanwhile, was rarely out of the football transfer news headlines as speculation built over which club he would leave Borussia Dortmund for. Manchester City ultimately won the transfer race, paying €60 million for one of the game’s hottest properties.
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AS reports, though, that while Real Madrid had no interest in signing Haaland this summer, they did want him to join in 2023. This would have been achieved by him remaining at Dortmund for an additional season.
Just because Haaland has left for Manchester City, though, does not mean that Madrid believe he is out of reach for them.
Haaland's Man City release clause
Indeed, it is reported in Spain that the striker has what is described as an “escape mechanism” from Manchester City – a €150m release fee that will come into force in 2023. This is a similar type of deal as the one he had at Dortmund that allowed him to depart so cheaply this summer.
Furthermore, relations between Real Madrid and Haaland are said to be untarnished. This, it is pointed out, was not the case with Kylian Mbappe, who elected to stay at PSG after months of toing and froing between contract offers.
It is also pointed out that the additional two years at Manchester City could help provide an answer to the question of him being injury prone. A succession of recent issues over the course of the last 18 months have seen him regularly laid up and have brought significant questions over his reliability. An answer to this will be evident in a couple of years.
Real Madrid, then, are well placed to make Haaland their long-term successor to Benzema, despite his transfer to Manchester City.
