Manchester United's goalkeeper David De Gea had agreed a very lucrative deal to join Real Madrid last summer, but forces out of his control caused the deal to fall through. Today, the controversial website Football Leaks made his six-year contract with Los Blancos public, revealing the huge amount of cash the Spanish giants were willing to spend in order to have the player around.
The leaked document shows that De Gea was set to earn almost 12 million euros for each of the six seasons included in the original deal. The contract, signed by Real Madrid execs Jose Angel Sánchez and Manuel Redondo, also included a number of clauses which would guarantee the shot-stopper bonuses if the team won certain tournaments, number of games played, number of clean sheets and so on.
Front page of the contract between Real Madrid & David De Gea, signed on August 31, 2015.
The contract also forced De Gea to use his social media feeds to promote those contents the team wanted him to promote, including videos, photo posts and such things. Furthermore, a very detailed clause indicated what sort of contract breaches would occur if the player decided to enter risky activities such as riding a motorcycle, going skydiving and such.
The deal also demanded De Gea to surrender 50% of his image rights to the club from the start of the ongoing season until the conclusion of the 2020-2021 season. This is a usual practice since Florentino Pérez took over as Los Blancos' President.
De Gea's deal with Madrid fell through during the final moments of summer's transfer deadline day, with Los Blancos blaming Manchester United of submitting all the transfer papers slowly in order to keep the goalkeeper with them.
Since then, De Gea has been key to keep Manchester United's chances of Champions League football alive, as the Spanish shot-stopper has kept nine clean sheets this season.
