Real Madrid eye Alaba if Ramos doesn't renew
The 28-year-old Austrian defender, whose contract at Bayern Munich ends in 2021, has become a target if contract renewal talks with Sergio Ramos break down.
David Alaba has gone from being rejected by Madrid, after being offered a couple of times to Los Blancos, to the club's plan B in the event of captain Sergio Ramos leaving next summer, when his contract expires. Ramos wants two more years added to his current deal, which is up in June 2021 and a salary increase. Madrid are only willing to give him one year, without a pay rise. The defender has also received an offer from PSG in which he would earn €60 million net in three seasons, almost double his current €12 million per year salary.
That is where Alaba comes into it, the 28-year-old is a versatile Austrian defender. The Bayern player will in no way fill the void that Ramos would leave on the field and in the dressing room, but he is Madrid's choice if Ramos leaves Madrid.
In March, talk of an Alaba move to Real Madrid started in Germany, going as far as saying Zinedine Zidane would have said yes to the operation. The transfer news was published by the highly-reliable German outlet Bild. Alaba was about to enter the final year of his contract, something that has already happened - his current deal is up in June 2021. Recently, it has transpired that things have gone cold between the player and Bayern, and that his departure is inevitable. His father, in 2018, even admitted that there were talks happening. "Everyone knows about Madrid's interest in my son," he said then. That interest is reciprocal and, now could be the right opportunity.
Alaba's father, who previously ran his son's affairs, has now put them in the hands of super-agent Pini Zahavi. The Israeli-born agent, who began working as a journalist before becoming a representative, and has built strong working relations with senior management at the Santiago Bernabéu when he fought hard on the transfer of Lewandowski to the Spanish capital, which didn't work out in the end. Zahavi, after Raiola, Mendes and Barnett, is one of the most influential players in the market and is keen on doing business with Madrid. Alaba would be a good start. But everything is subject to the hypothetical departure of Ramos, which, even today, seems more than unlikely.