Ramos leaves Real Madrid

Sergio Ramos leaves Real Madrid. The white club has published an official statement at around half past nine on Wednesday night announcing that the 35-year-old center-back will not continue at the club at the end of his contract. Ramos will be able to end 16 seasons defending the Madrid shirt in an official act in which the entity will dismiss its captain with all honors, who will be accompanied by the president of Real Madrid, Florentino Pérez. This act will take place this Thursday, June 17, at 12:30 pm in the Real Madrid City of Valdebebas. After the ceremony, Ramos will appear before the media at a press conference to explain the decision to leave, which he has reached by mutual agreement with the entity.

The soap opera that has kept Real Madrid in suspense in recent months is ending, as the expiration of the contractual link that linked Ramos with the white entity approached until June 30. The talks for the renewal of the contract, which have been personally led by Sergio Ramos and Florentino Pérez, without intermediaries, have gone through several phases. The last meeting between the two, as published by AS, was held last Friday in an atmosphere of cordiality between the player and the maximum white president.

Ramos leaves without a parachute. The ordeal of injuries he has suffered in the last five months, and which has left him out of the European Championship, has closed the market for the central defender. The player does not have any offer on the table right now to play next season, but seeing that the club did not give him the two-year contract he was asking for, even if it was down, he understood that it was time to leave.. Now, when announcing that he is leaving Madrid, he trusts that the market will wake up and proposals will begin to arrive.

The panorama has changed for Ramos since the first, informal meeting that he had with Florentino Pérez on the eve of the last New Year's Eve. That December 30, during Madrid's concentration in Elche, the president conveyed to him the intentions of the club, which was willing to keep his salary (he charges 12 million euros net annually), in exchange for a one-year contract and to accept the 10% salary reduction that the entity has applied to the entire workforce to alleviate the drop in income due to the crisis derived from the pandemic. That initial proposal, both in duration and in economic terms, did not satisfy the side, who understood that the entity did not value his trajectory and that the offers would reach him after January 1, when, according to FIFA regulations, he was free to negotiate his future with another club. He was performing at a high level and had just raised a league five months earlier in which he had been a fundamental piece for the white team.

After that face to face, injuries have tortured the defender. Neither the negotiations with Madrid advanced and the offers came from outside. Since he stopped after the discomfort he felt in the semifinal of the Spanish Super Cup against Athletic on January 14, Ramos has only been able to participate in three games with Madrid and two with the Spanish national team. The last of them, on March 31 against Kosovo, in a testimonial way before falling from his injury. On February 6, he underwent surgery on the internal meniscus of his right knee, in order to overcome the discomfort he was carrying. He accelerated his recovery to help the team in the second leg of the Champions League round of 16 against Atalanta. He relapsed on March 31, in a match with the National Team against Kosovo in which he took the field testimonially to add one more international match in his career (he has 180) and get closer to the world record held by the Egyptian Ahmed Hassan, with 184 games. After that night at La Cartuja, he has only played the second leg of the Champions League semi-finals against Chelsea. That inactivity has also taken its toll on La Roja and Luis Enrique decided to leave him out of the call for the Eurocup.

Official statement from Real Madrid on Sergio Ramos

Real Madrid C. F. announces that tomorrow, Thursday, June 17, at 12:30 pm, there will be an institutional act of tribute and farewell to our captain Sergio Ramos, with the presence of our president Florentino Pérez.

Next, Sergio Ramos will appear before the media at a telematic press conference.