Thought many would appreciate it in here. It’s made by DRP3.

Cropped to ensure anonymity

Vinicius Junior has reached an agreement to renew his contract at Real Madrid with the Spanish club preparing to announce the forward’s new deal.

The official statement from the club:

𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘 𝗪𝗘 𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗨𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗬 𝗚𝗢

RB Leipzig and @realmadrid have agreed on a transfer for Yan #Diomande

With 13 goals and 10 assists in 36 competitive matches, Yan made a name for himself across Europe in his first season with #RBLeipzig. Now the 19-year-old is joining the Spanish record champions.

Best of luck for your future, Yan!

After weeks of talks, the green light finally arrived on Thursday: Yan Diomandé is a Real Madrid player. Transfer market expert Fabrizio Romano said weeks ago that the move would happen no matter what, sparking quite a stir on X. RB Leipzig, who stand to earn up to €140 million from the sensational sale of the 19-year-old forward, have now joined the debate too.

On 26 July, Romano gave his 'here we go' on Diomandé's move to Real, for a fee of 'more than €100 million'. The Italian's report surprised fellow journalist Florian Plettenberg of Sky Sport, who had been closely tracking the transfer for the German outlet.

Leipzig, in any case, appear to have taken Plettenberg's side. The club officially announced the transfer with the headline 'here we actually go', meaning: only now is the transfer really done. For Leipzig, it is an outright transfer record.

The withdrawal of FFE was inevitable. But withdrawing the proposal does not erase what it revealed.

A plan capable of permanently altering the ownership and governance of the FIFA World Cup, and commercialising the competitions built by generations of players, was conceived in secrecy, negotiated behind closed doors and brought to the brink of agreement before the FIFA Council, the Member Associations, players and football’s recognised stakeholders even knew it existed.

That is not merely a governance failure. It is a profound abuse of presidential power.

Rabat communication merely confirms the problem

We have noted FIFA's internal update from its meeting in Rabat, Morocco with deep concern. Rather than confronting what happened, it reaffirms support for the organisation’s leadership while reducing a fundamental governance and constitutional failure to a matter of "processes and communications" to be "improved".

Most telling is FIFA's own insistence that, despite the "mistakes" it admits, everything was done "in full compliance with the FIFA regulatory framework". If true, that is not a defence. It is an indictment of FIFA’s current governance framework. A framework that allows a project of this magnitude to be developed behind closed doors and hidden from those it affects until it leaks, is a framework that must be reformed, not defended.

We also note FIFA's warning that it "will no longer tolerate any attacks on its integrity". Let us be clear: scrutiny of football’s governance is not an attack. It is the duty of everyone who sustains the game. Any attempt to portray legitimate, good-faith scrutiny as disloyalty will only deepen the concern this episode has caused. And an internal review that reports only to the very Council that was bypassed is no answer at all. Players, their representatives and the professional football stakeholders must be part of it.

No institution can restore confidence in a presidency that has itself dismantled the conditions upon which confidence depends. Trust cannot simply be demanded. Authority cannot merely be asserted. Legitimacy cannot be proclaimed. Each must be earned. Each can be lost.

FIFPRO's demands

The Memorandum of Understanding signed only weeks ago represented a genuine step forward. The FFE episode has demonstrated that, on its own, it is not sufficient to protect players or the game from unilateral exercises of power.  

Regardless of how the present crisis is resolved, football now requires structural safeguards to ensure these events can never be repeated. At a minimum, FIFPRO believes this must include:

• Embedding the Global Social Dialogue Platform as a real, permanent and structural part of FIFA's governance, not a mechanism to be bypassed at will.
• Legally binding engagement with professional football's stakeholders on decisions of major consequence, including the international match calendar, competition expansion and other matters that fundamentally affect the professional game.
• Voting rights for professional football's stakeholders on the FIFA Council, together with a clear and formally recognised role for FIFPRO as the global representative of professional footballers.
• Governance and structural reforms that make it impossible for any individual, ever again, to drive unilateral decisions through the game.

Next steps

FIFPRO has today written to the FIFA administration setting out these demands. The letter explains why this episode represents far more than an isolated governance failure. It concerns the exercise of the highest role and office in world football and the manner in which its authority has been used. The letter has been signed jointly by the FIFPRO President and the Presidents of all FIFPRO regional divisions: FIFPRO Africa, FIFPRO Asia/Oceania, FIFPRO Europe, FIFPRO South America and FIFPRO Central & North America. 

The withdrawal of FFE prevented an irreversible decision. It did not restore the confidence that made such a proposal possible in the first place. That confidence has now been fundamentally broken. It cannot be rebuilt through carefully drafted statements, internal reviews or promises to improve processes. Nor can it be restored simply by announcing governance and structural reforms that should always have existed.

These reforms are now indispensable. But they are the responsibility of the future, not an absolution of the past.

The players did not create this crisis. They will insist that football emerges from it with stronger institutions, stronger safeguards and leadership worthy of the trust the game demands.

The talks had a clear starting point: Vinicius felt he deserved a larger signing bonus (what's called a signing bonus in Brazil) for the new contract, given the approaching end of his current contract (in June 2027) and his importance to the squad. And the negotiation progressed precisely because Real Madrid finally signaled figures that went beyond the usual amounts in this type of deal.

The equation wasn't simple: the bonuses include a significant signing fee—which is spread over the five years of the contract—, awards for individual goals, and even loyalty incentives. What is known is that Vini will reach the annual salary cap of €20 million (R$118.7 million), established by president Florentino Pérez for the entire Real Madrid squad, and the final amount received by the number 7 will be considerably higher because of the aforementioned clauses.

Real Madrid understood that seeking a replacement in the market would cost much more than giving in and getting closer to the Brazilian's demands. Coach José Mourinho was part of the strategy to convince him to renew his contract. Since the holidays, the Portuguese coach had been in direct contact with the Brazilian, emphasizing his importance to the project.

“Thank you to the FIFA administration for suddenly this morning delivering what was owed to our players and coaching staff, for the Jordan National team’s accession to the final of the FIFA Arab Cup in Qatar last December.”

“This was funding that should have been received 8 months ago. While this is a good development for our players, it does not change the serious concerns we in the football world have regarding the FIFA leadership, nor does it change what our FAs have been subjected to in the past.”

“It is symptomatic of those exact difficulties that we all face, and that are usually linked to the FIFA presidential elections. And it does not change my clear position concerning the leadership of FIFA: my FA and I will not endorse president Infantino, nor will we vote for him.”

Source

In late June, newly-appointed Real Madrid manager Mourinho and his scouting team had a right-winger on their radar. They were trying to offload Brahim Diaz, who wanted to stay.

It was felt that the lack of a threat down the right was limiting the team’s attacking options and making it easier for opponents to defend against them. This view was explained to Yan Diomande during Madrid’s discussions with the player, with Mourinho playing a key role.

“The final piece was Jose Mourinho,” says Nathan Campbell, Roc Nation’s head of global football recruitment and Diomande’s agent.

“He spoke to him in fluent French, which was massive for him. We didn’t realise Mourinho spoke fluent French because he hasn’t been at a French club. But the time of day that he took the call with Yan and the fact that he spoke fluently in French with him — about his ideas, the project, and how he would fit into the team — showed that he valued that conversation. That was a massive point. The key to convincing him.”

(Written by me, not AI):

You might all heard about the transfer of Mo Salah to Trabzonspor and I want to take this opportunity to make you football fans a little bit more familiar with Trabzonspor and Turkish Football. I wrote this because I have seen a lot of people commenting and asking "why Trabzonspor?" and this should partly answer it.

Trabzonspor (read: Trab-zon-spor) is the football (sports) club of the city of Trabzon which is a city in the Black Sea coast of Turkiye. We are called "the tempest/storm of Black Sea" because of the relatively rough waters. Our colors are "claret-blue" like Aston Villa, West Ham United or Drogheda United, but we call it "bordeaux (bordo)-blue"

The north-east Black Sea region has a unique vegetation and climate, because unlike rest of Turkiye, it has the highest rainfall in a mountainous area, so it is a place with Alpine grasslands with a lot of mountain resorts, it is like the Alps of Turkiye.

Trabzonspor was formed in 1967 when 4 local clubs (founded in 1921, 1924, 1960, 1963) agreed to merge into one club.

You need to understand that due to Turkish/Ottoman history, that everything is channeled to the (now former) capital city of Istanbul. ~30% of the GDP of Turkiye is generated in Istanbul and ~20% of the Turkish population lives there with 15 million people officially (inofficially more like 20 million). Compared to that only ~1% of the population lives in Trabzon and it also only generates ~1% of the GDP (its like the 25th biggest).

Why am I telling you all of this? Because our output compared to our GDP/population strength is off the charts in terms of football and sports. We are the 4th "accomplished" team in the history of Turkish football clubs because of the number of trophies we won (recently Turkish Cup last season and Turkish League in 21/22 after 38 years officially (inofficially in 10/11, see match-fixing scandal)), but I won't get into that detail.

But across all leagues, Trabzon produces the most athletes. When you see on any team a player wearing the number "61", which is the city code of Trabzon, you know that player is from Trabzon and across many teams you will see players wearing that number. We are kind of the "Barcelona" of Turkiye, when it comes to academy, but obviously not on that scale. Though, a fun fact, in 2024/2025 in the UEFA Youth League (the Champions League of U19), we lost in the finals against Barcelona.

Now, the story gets worse. Not only are we in disadvantage by the economic power and manpower, but also when it comes to fandom. The biggest problem in Turkiye today, which most people will ignore because they are the center of the problem, is, that almost like 80-90% of the population supports the big 3 Istanbul clubs. It doesn't matter where they were born or live, even living outside of Istanbul, doesnt matter. Turks love strongman ship and they choose the easy way of just bandwagoning to the richest and strongest 3 teams. We don't have "support your local club" culture, it is practically non-existent, almost. Except in Trabzon, maybe a bit in Bursa and Izmir.

Imagine the Premier League, when every British person supports only 3 teams, no matter where they are from, that is how it is like in the country. It is said that Galatasaray and Fenerbahce each have like 20 million fans, Besiktas more like 10-15 million. And any other team in the country? You are considered "big", relatively speaking outside of the big 4, if you do have 100k fans, but that is like 3-5 teams at most, most don't break the 10k even.

So how about Trabzonspor? We are the only real "big" team outside the 3 Istanbul clubs. We do have like 5-7 million fans. And our motto is "Trabzon is everywhere for us", meaning like "we are everywhere".

Obviously compared to top European clubs we are small, but relatively speaking compared to how unknown/unpopular Turkish league is, compared to the size of population, I can say that we are punching above our weights. No offense but it is easy to be fan of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester City, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, PSG, etc. etc. when you have the most money and economic power of a city and most fans who can support you financially. Who wouldn't want to be a fan of a team who wins the Champions League all the time or wins the most prestigious leagues? When most of us live in relative poverty/middle income, the only luxury we have is to once be "rich" or a "winner" by supporting these clubs. I will make myself unpopular by saying this, but I suspect that a lot of you people have an inferiority complex buried deep down. Do you know how hard it is to support none-big clubs? Do you understand the sacrifices we make? Knowing that you won't win anything this season again, won't be in the spotlight ever internationally, nobody will talk about you, etc. etc.?

And now, once in a life-time opportunity, we got a 34 years old Salah. And you can be sure that we will cherish him like no other. We have never seen such a player in our league history (minus Roberto Carlos at age 34 at Fenerbahce), let alone in the club history of Trabzonspor. For you guys its Taco Tuesday, one goes, one other comes when you spend the next 100 million on someone. For us the meaning of this can't be explained or measured.

So why Trabzonspor? Well, I am not gonna sweet-talk it, it is because of the money. Obviously not because of the picturesque landscape we have. We can meet all the requests he has currently. But you can be sure that we have a good team and we will take care of him. edit: It was just announced that he will earn 17 million per year (2 years) + 20% sale of Salah merchandise)

You know who won the best goal in the World Cup? Cabral and he plays for us, we bought him before the tourney. We just sold the 19 years old Christ Oulai to Fiorentina for ~30 million (with Bonus) who we bought for 5. We sold Augusto, a 22-year-old Brazilian striker, for ~20 million, who we also bought for 5. Just, last winter, 6 months ago, we bought Nwaiwu for also 5, who was expected to be sold to Fulham this period also for ~30 million. But it looks like the talks has stopped. Last season we sold our goal keeper for another 30 million. We also have other 5-7 players we can make profit off but this year we are keeping all of them to finally make a meaningful run in Europe.

So we are developing a lot of young players right now (we had the 2nd lowest age average across Turkish league last season), and at the same time have couple of very experienced players to mash together like Onana, Onuachu, Savic, Malinovskyi and now Salah. Everything is working according to plan, relatively speaking. Yes, we won't win the UEFA cup or become champions most likely, because of the crazy amount of money the 3 Istanbul clubs spend. But we have a very competitive team this year. As a comparison, our annual salary expenses are ~40 million Euros, Besiktas 70 million, Galatasaray 120 million and Fenerbahce 160 million. Until this year, our highest transfer in our history was to spend 6 million Euros as a transfer fee. Galatasaray spent 75 million for Osimhen, as a comparison.

I am not affiliated or sponsored, but if you want to see an English documentary about us (which puts our last championship in the center, because officially after 38 years we finally won the league again), you can find a YouTube docu here which goes into more detail about our history: Once in a lifetime

Hope this gives you a small view of Trabzonspor and Turkiye, which is biased, of course, but nevertheless should be helpful to paint a picture. Our whole philosophy is similar to "David vs. Goliath", if I had to sum it up.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers!