Real Madrid expect to complete a deal to sign Yan Diomande from RB Leipzig in the coming hours, sources have told ESPN. A source told ESPN that Madrid were set to seal the teenager's signing between Monday and Tuesday, for a deal expected to total €135 million ($153.8M) including variables, with a fixed sum of between €115M ($131M) and €120M ($136.7M).
“The asking transfer fee and salary demands were completely disproportionate and distortive,” the French club said, adding they would not “engage in the inflationary and manipulative games of certain player agents.” Fifteen-times European champions Madrid pressed on and their terms are modelled on Jude Bellingham’s deal, performance incentivised and improving year on year.
Winger Diomande, 19, is one of football's top young prospects after excelling in the Bundesliga last season -- scoring 12 goals and providing eight assists -- and starring for Ivory Coast at the World Cup. At the World Cup, he created eleven chances in four appearances for Ivory Coast before they were eliminated by Norway in the round of 32. Leipzig did fight to keep him but the Bundesliga’s young player of the season for 2025/26, with 12 goals and eight assists, was increasingly in the top clubs’ sights.