Karim Benzema extends stay at Real Madrid, renews contract until 2023

Real Madrid have confirmed the extension of Karim Benzema's contract after he signed it earlier on Friday. The French forward will now remain at the club till June 2023. He becomes the sixth player this season to sign a contract extension after Luka Modric, Nacho Fernandez, Dani Carvajal, Lucas Vazquez, and Thibaut Courtois.

In an official statement on their website, the club wrote: "Real Madrid C.F. and Karim Benzema have agreed to an extension of the player's contract and he will remain at the club for the next two seasons, until 30 June 2023. Reports suggest that he will now have a €1 billion buy-out clause in his contract which will is basically being viewed as a move to let the other clubs know that he is there to stay at the Bernabeu.

This is his 12th season at the club where he has managed to put himself in the all-time top scorers' list of the club while scoring 281 goals, including 194 in La Liga and 59 in the UEFA Champions League while managing to set up over 120 goals for his teammates. Benzema has managed to win a host of trophies during his time at the club with a total of 19 major titles including four Champions Leagues and three La Liga trophies.

Madrid lets players go

Los Blancos have been surprisingly selling and letting go of players this transfer window as they prepare for the arrival of Kylian Mbappe from PSG, who has been linked on the club on numerous occasions. Madrid has managed to sell Martin Odegaard and Raphael Varane while also releasing Sergio Ramos so far this term. However, they have managed to extend contracts for many key players, including Courtois, who arrived at the club for a reported fee of £35 million from Chelsea and become the most expensive goalkeeper signing in La Liga.

Real Madrid refute claims about switching to Premier League

After the Spanish newspaper, Mundo Deportivo stated that Real Madrid will be trying to make a move to the English Premier League after some friction that has been developing between the club and La Liga, the club released an official statement refuting the rumours and saying it was all untrue. They said the information published by the said newspaper about the club studying the possibility of moving from La Lipa to the Premier League is all completely ‘false, absurd, and impossible’ and the only motive of the article is to disturb the club. This comes on the back of some infighting between the club and La Liga.

The statement reads, "Given the information published today by the newspaper Mundo Deportivo, in which it says that our club studied the possibility of moving from LaLiga to the Premier, Real Madrid wants to assert that this information is completely false, absurd, and impossible and it only intends to disturb, once more, the day to day of our club.”

Image Credits: @realmadriden - Twitter