Real Madrid have not been able to sign a player for most of this month because they cannot sell one. That is the story of the club’s August. And yet, quietly, on the same Thursday that Raúl Asencio’s agent was reported to be ringing round Europe with no success, two former Madrid academy players moved a step closer to handing the club around €20 million between them — without either of them being on the payroll. The first of them is Antonio Blanco.
This is the least glamorous and most reliable part of the Real Madrid business model, and it is having its best summer in years. Here is what it rests on.
- The Antonio Blanco clause: a €20m exit from Alavés, half of it Madrid’s
- Sergio Arribas at Almería, four clubs circling and a rejected €20m bid
- Manuel Ángel to Almería for €6m — the template being run in real time
- Why the money does not solve Mourinho’s actual problem
- What is still to come before the window shuts on 31 August
Background: La Fábrica’s record summer
Bernabéu Digital put Real Madrid’s sales income this summer at around €200 million, and note that most of it has come from players who were not in the first-team squad last season. Madrid Universal, citing AS, describe a long list of academy departures this window — César Palacios, Gonzalo García, Fran González and Jacobo Ortega among them. Bernabéu Digital go further and call it the best selling market in the club’s history; that is their judgement rather than an official figure, but the direction of travel is not in dispute.
The mechanism matters more than the total. Madrid rarely sell a young player outright. They sell a percentage, or they attach a buy-back, or they keep half the rights to a future transfer — a formula Bernabéu Digital describe as the club’s habitual approach with its prospects: let them leave and develop somewhere they will actually play, without losing economic control of what they become. We looked at the beginning of this run in our report on the latest academy exits.
The two clauses that could pay out this month
Antonio Blanco: a €20m move, €10m for Real Madrid
Antonio Blanco left Real Madrid several seasons ago, but the club never stopped being a stakeholder in him. According to Bernabéu Digital’s Miguel Rubio Contreras, the midfielder’s exit from Alavés could now be very close, in a deal worth somewhere around €20 million — and because Madrid retained 50% of the rights to any future transfer when he left, roughly €10 million of that would land in the club’s accounts, depending on the final terms.
The report adds that clubs in Italy and in LaLiga are watching the situation. Nothing is signed, and the figure moves with the structure of any agreement. But the principle is the part Madridistas should note: if it closes at those numbers, Valdebebas banks eight figures for a player who has not worn a Madrid shirt for years, and without a single member of Mourinho’s squad leaving.
Sergio Arribas: four clubs, and a €20m bid Almeria turned down
The same structure sits over Sergio Arribas, who has spent several strong seasons at Almería. Bernabéu Digital report that Deportivo de La Coruña have registered interest, with Sporting CP, Benfica and Ajax also keen, according to the ABC journalist Ángel García. Madrid again hold 50% of the rights, and Almería are said to have already rejected a €20 million offer for him — which, if a sale eventually happens at that level, would mean a little over €10 million for Madrid.
There is a sting in that one. Bernabéu Digital are explicit that a sale would sever Madrid’s interest in Arribas entirely, and that bringing him back to the Bernabéu is not part of the plan. The percentage is not a hedge on a future signing here. It is simply the price of having let a good player go.
Manuel Angel: the template running in real time
The clearest illustration is the deal being finalised this week. Manuel Ángel, the 22-year-old Castilla captain from Seville, is joining Almería for €6 million, with Madrid keeping 50% of his future rights — the same formula again. Madrid Universal, citing AS, report a five-year contract with an option for a sixth, with only the final details outstanding; Bernabéu Digital carry the same €6m valuation.
He is not a nobody being cashed in. Manuel Ángel arrived at Valdebebas in 2018 after four years in Sevilla’s academy and became the engine of the Juvenil A side that won a treble of the División de Honor, the Copa del Rey and the UEFA Youth League — a team coached at the time by Álvaro Arbeloa and containing Nico Paz, Gonzalo García, César Palacios and Jacobo Ramón. Last season he made seven senior appearances, debuting in the Copa del Rey against Albacete, playing four league matches and featuring in the Champions League tie with Manchester City. He had been training separately through pre-season while a destination was found.
The catch: cash is not the constraint
Here is where the good news runs into Madrid’s actual August problem. None of this money buys Mourinho what he has asked for, because the blockage this month has never really been the bank balance — it has been the squad list. Every senior slot is filled, and the club’s own line has been that nobody arrives until somebody goes. We set that out in our piece on the blocked departures, and it has not changed since.
A sell-on percentage on a player at Alavés or Almería does not free a shirt at Valdebebas. Nor is any of it banked yet: Blanco’s move is reported as close, not done; Arribas has a €20 million bid already turned down; and both figures are described as approximations that depend on how the deals are structured. Percentages are also only worth what the buying club eventually sells for, which is the quiet cost of this model — Madrid keep a stake, but they hand the timing, the development and the shop window to somebody else.
And there is a sporting price that no accountant records. Read back through the names in that Juvenil A treble side and the point makes itself: a club that sells half of every prospect it produces will, sooner or later, sell half of one it needed.
Future outlook: 11 days, and a ‘final push’
Two more academy sales are still in motion. Bernabéu Digital name David Jiménez and Daniel Yáñez as canteranos with interest around them who have not found a way into the first team, alongside the Manuel Ángel deal. If Blanco and Arribas both move as well, the summer’s academy income climbs again before 31 August.
The interesting question is whether any of it changes the first team. The journalist José Félix Díaz has said Madrid are keeping the door open for a late move — “it is not only Sergio Martínez, I think there will be a final push” — with the midfield or the defence the likely area. The obstacle is the same one it has been all month: Alessandro Bastoni has been left waiting on an Asencio exit that shows no sign of happening, as we explained when the Italian first emerged as Mourinho’s centre-back target, and the latest on the Spaniard’s stalled departure is in our report on Jorge Mendes’s search for a club.
Realistically, then: expect the sell-on money to arrive, and expect it to sit in the accounts rather than turn into a signing. Madrid’s late-window habit under this board has been to hold unless a departure forces their hand.
The verdict on Real Madrid’s sell-on summer
Antonio Blanco and Sergio Arribas are not going to be talked about on the terraces this weekend, and both stories may yet stall. But together they are the clearest picture available of how this club now funds itself: a production line that keeps earning long after the player has gone, currently worth around €20 million from two footballers nobody expects to see at Chamartín again.
The football is the more urgent business. Mourinho’s first competitive match of his second spell comes on Saturday — here are the kick-off time and TV details for Espanyol vs Real Madrid — and by the time the window shuts nine days later, La Fábrica will almost certainly have brought in more money this summer than the first team has.
