Real Madrid's €150m bid for Julian Alvarez rejected by Atletico amid €500m release clause

Real Madrid’s opening move to sign Julian Alvarez has been swiftly blocked, with Atletico Madrid rejecting a €150 million (approximately $173 million) bid for the Argentine forward on Tuesday.

Real Madrid confirmed the offer in an official statement, saying the club’s board had approved the proposal and submitted it to their city rivals. Atletico responded by thanking Real for the approach — framed as a gesture within the “good relations existing between both clubs” — before declining and pointing to Alvarez’s €500 million release clause as the basis for the rejection.

“Real Madrid CF announces that, following today’s Board of Directors meeting, it has made an offer of 150 million euros to Club Atletico de Madrid for the federative rights of the player Julian Alvarez,” the club said on its official website. “Atletico de Madrid has thanked the club for the offer and has rejected it, referring to the player’s release clause.”

Alvarez, 25, delivered a productive debut season at Atletico after joining from Manchester City, scoring 20 goals in 49 appearances as Diego Simeone’s side finished fourth in La Liga.

The bid had been widely anticipated after Real president Florentino Perez, in the days before Sunday’s club election, publicly pledged to spend €150 million on a high-profile signing to be announced on Tuesday. The fee would have represented a new club record for Real.

Perez secured another four-year term as president on Sunday in the club’s first contested election in nearly two decades, winning 65% of the vote against renewable energy tycoon Enrique Riquelme, who took 35%. A total of 33,555 members cast ballots at Real’s Valdebebas training ground.

“This has been a great day for Real Madrid. We have won across the board,” Perez said in his victory speech. Riquelme, in conceding defeat, said: “Real Madrid will not go another 20 years without an election.”

Perez called the snap election on 12 May despite having two years remaining on his mandate, following a second consecutive season without a trophy for the record 15-time European champions, and with arch-rivals Barcelona reclaiming the La Liga title. Whether Real will pursue Alvarez further — or redirect their transfer ambitions elsewhere — remains to be seen.