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Real Madrid’s James Rodriguez is close to making a switch to French champions Paris Saint-Germain – according to reports in France.

Rodriguez arrived at Madrid following his star-studded showings for Colombia in the 2014 World Cup, but he has struggled to recreate that level of performance at the Santiago Bernabéu. The hype of his big-money move has reduced significantly within two years, with the 24-year-old making just 17 starts in La Liga last season.

Rodriguez helped his country to a third-placed finish in the Copa America earlier this summer and those displays for Colombia have peaked the interest of Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United, with the three Premier League sides reportedly interested in taking the former Monaco forward to England.

However, Ligue 1 holders PSG’s talks about a move that would see Rodriguez return to French football are at a “very advanced stage” according to Yahoo Sport France, who list their source as being close to club president Jorge Mendes.

Their report suggests that the finer points of the deal are yet to be negotiated, but talks are said to be on-going and Rodriguez is said to be “interested in the PSG project.”

New PSG manager Unai Emery only arrived at the Parc des Princes last week, but he’s not wasted any time in making his mark on the squad he inherited from former boss Laurent Blanc. Should the Colombian international make the switch from Madrid to Paris, he would be Emery’s fourth signing – after the club have already agreed deals for Hatem Ben Arfa, Grzegorz Krychowiak and Thomas Meunier.

Despite a host of new arrivals at the French champions, Rodriguez would be the marquee signing that the club have needed since the departure of talismanic striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The Swedish striker has opted against signing a new contract at the club and has joined former Madrid boss Jose Mourinho at Manchester United instead.

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Santiago Bernabeu Stadium

Real Madrid, Barcelona and five other La Liga clubs are being forced to pay back millions of euros given to them in state aid and/or favourable tax rates by local governments, due to a ruling by the European Commission.

The Commission had found that this cash had been paid to clubs in a variety of methods, including corporate tax privileges and re-valuation of land, and they have deemed that it gives the seven clubs in receipt of it an unfair advantage over other teams in breach of EU state aid rules.

Because of these findings, the Spainish government must now recover the illegal state aid payments from Champions League winners Madrid, La Liga champions Barca, Athletic Bilbao, Atletico Osasuna, Elche, Hercules and Valencia. According to Spanish media reports, these state aid credits date back 20 years and are estimated to total €68.8 million euros.

Explaining their decision, commissioner Margrethe Vestager – who is in charge of competition policy – said in her statement: “Using tax payers’ money to finance professional football clubs can create unfair competition.

“Professional football is a commercial activity with significant money involved and public money must comply with fair competition rules. The subsidies we investigated in these cases did not.”

Madrid were found to be one of four clubs profiting from tax privileges, along with Barcelona, Bilbao and Osasuna. These four clubs were wrongly treated as non-profit organisations and were able to pay a 5 per cent lower tax rate on their tax profits for a 20-year period.

The Commission also examined a land transfer between the Santiago Bernabéu-based side and the City of Madrid and determined – based on an independent study – that the transaction for the land affected was overvalued by 18.4m euros. They ruled this also gave Real an unfair advantage over other clubs and that money now also needs to be paid back.

The amounts to be paid back are: Real Madrid 18.4m euros (£15.4m), Elche 3.7m (£3.1m) euros, Hercules 6.1m (£5.1m) euros and Valencia, 20.4m (£17.1m) euros. The Spanish tax autorities are yet to determine the value of fees to be paid by Athletic Bilbao, Barcelona and Osasuna at the time of writing.

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Last week, Manchester City did the official announcement of Nolito’s signing. The Celta player did a really good Euro and will go back to play along Pep Guardiola, a coach he knows very well from Barcelona.

Guardiola is targeting some players he knows for his previous jobs and this concerns Real Madrid. Now, Toni Kroos is in Manchester City agenda and the interest looks unstoppable.

The Manchester City official Twitter account posted a tweet about the interest of Kroos and Luis Suárez by the citizens side. Guardiola trained Toni Kroos in his first year at Bayern Munich but the German midfielder left the club and arrived to Real Madrid with a great success.

Actually, no one thinks on selling Toni Kroos this year. Real Madrid midfielder positions are covered with Casemiro, Luka Modric and Toni Kroos, with James Rodríguez and Isco on the bench. Actually another player like Kanté could arrive to reinforce this position.

Toni Kroos is doing a great Euro with his national team. Kroos scored on Saturday his penalty shoot against Italy and helped his team to reach the semifinals and beat Italy for the first team in the history.

Toni Kroos’ value is rising every day and the German player might want a better deal. Manchester City pay high salaries to his players and are building a high competitive squad for Guardiola’s first year in the Etihad Stadium, according to Marca.

The citizens bought Nolito and Gundogan but are also interested on Kroos, Luis Suárez or Real Sociedad goalkeeper Gerónimo Rulli. Overall, they want to build a good team to fight for all the trophies.

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After a few weeks, Keylor Navas is already enjoying some days of holidays in Costa Rica with his family. He has spent part of his holidays in Madrid recovering from an injury and training with the phisiotherapist in Valdebebas. He even missed the Copa America Centenario with his national team. .

He went into surgery on the 9th of June and the next few weeks he was working in Madrid. Now, he is in Costa Rica spending some time with his family but also doing some exercises to keep the shape and continue recovering from his surgery.

The main target is arriving to the European Supercup, next 9th of August against Sevilla in Norway. However, the schedule is quite tight and Keylor Navas could miss the first trophy of the year.

The doctors and the medical team don’t want to put pressure on the goalkeeper and, if he’s not fully recovered, Kiko Casilla will be the goalkeeper in this important game.

Keylor Navas had surgery with the doctor Van Dijk and he’s been working as a professional to recovered as soon as possible, according to some sources in Valdebebas. Two days after surgery, he was already training and trying to recover.

During June, Navas has been going every day to Valdebebas at 11 o’clock to train. He spent at least three hours per day and, in the afternoon, he did some exercises at home as well.

After his impressive season, Keylor Navas knows that he has to give 100% of his capacities to stay one year more as the main goalkeeper in Real Madrid. Navas played a key role in the Champions League trophy and would like to stay longer in Real Madrid goal.

However, according to the Mirror, Real Madrid is already looking to sign Hugo Lloris, the Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper, to add some competence to the goalkeeper position.

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According The Mirror, Real Madrid is targeting the Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, who is now playing for France in the Euro 2016. Los Blancos want another goalkeeper to compete with Keylor Navas in the goal.

Currently, Kiko Casilla is the second goalkeeper and last year he was very unlucky because he was supposed to play Copa del Rey but Real was knocked out in the first game against Cádiz for irregularities in the line up. Therefore Casilla couldn’t play a lot and only showed his qualities in a few games in La Liga.

The English newspaper says that Real Madrid want another top-class goalkeeper to compete with Keylor Navas despite the great season the Costa Rican player did last year.

Lloris is now playing the Euro with France and he’s the goalkeeper of the national team. He’s playing tonight the quarter finals against Iceland and Germany is already waiting in the semi finals.

Lloris’ season at Tottenham Hotspur was great, perhaps the best since his arrival to North London. With Pocchettino on the bench, the Spurs fought for the Premier League title until the end of the season with Leicester City and next year they’ll play the Champions League group stages again.

According to the same source, Lloris’ price is around 35M€. Real Madrid know how hard is negotiating with Tottenham Hotspur, former club of Luka Modric or Gareth Bale. Florentino Pérez and Daniel Levy know each other very well and keep a good relationship after these deals.

After Keylor Navas and Kiko Casilla good performance, it looks quite unlikely that Real Madrid want to change anything in the goalkeeper position. David de Gea looks forgotten and, perhaps, the club should focus on reinforce some other position in the pitch.

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Real Madrid has closed a deal to sign the Paraguayan striker Sergio Díaz from Cerro Porteño. Díaz, born in Itauguá, Paraguay, on 1998 was playing for the best team in the Paraguayan league and will join the Real Madrid squad in the next season.

Los Blancos will pay five million euros to Cerro Porteño plus one million for depending on the goals he achieves. Sergio Díaz will join Real Madrid in a five years deal and will play in Castilla, the youngster Real Madrid team, trained by Santiago Solari next year, according to As.

The young striker, with only 18 years old, played in Cerro Porteño and he has played in the Paraguayan national team, in the different youngster teams. He is coming to Madrid to replace the two main strikers, Mariano and Borja Mayoral.

Mayoral played already a few games in the first squad with Zinedine Zidane, who trusted the forward for some important games in La Liga but Mayoral couldn’t score a goal. Now, he’ll leave the club on loan to have some minutes in La Liga.

Sergio Diaz could play as a offensive midfielder or as a forward. He plays football similar to Sergio Agüero and, actually, his nickname is ´Kun’ for the Argentinian player.

The striker made his first appearance with Ciclión de Barrio Obrero in June 2014. He has scored 16 goals in 70 games in just two seasons. He’s been considered as one of the best youngsters in South America. Also Liverpool tried to sign him last year, offering up to 10 M€ but the president rejected the bid because Sergio Diaz wasn’t even 18 at that time.

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Wales impressive Euro has another chapter for the history. The Welsh team beat Belgium (3-1) in one of the best games in the tournament securing a place in the semifinals. This is Wales’ first Euro and they are just one step ahead of the final.

Before playing in Saint Denis for the trophy, they’ll have to face Portugal, who won against Poland in penalties on Thursday. It’s going to be a Portugal-Wales in the semifinal but also a game between Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo, the two Real Madrid stars.

Gareth Bale is being one of the best players of the tournament. The winger scored three goals in the first three games of the tournament and after he played a decisive role in the team. Against Belgium, Bale couldn’t score but his performance was great to secure a spot in the semifinals.

“It’s going to be Portugal against Wales, nothing else”, said Bale after the game. However, the two Real Madrid stars have a rivalry in the team and will meet in the pitch with a European final in the table.

“We knew what we could give, we had a very clear game plan and we also knew Belgium perfectly from previous matches,” Bale said after the game. “We executed the plan to perfection and definitely deserved the victory”.

“We have learned from the mistakes we made in other matches and we are getting stronger and stronger. We knew that they had plenty of talent and very good individuals, but we have shown what a real team can do. We have to continue with our work and stick to it”, Bale finished. Now they’ll face Portugal in the semifinal with Cristiano Ronaldo as a captain. Who will win, Cristiano or Bale?

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Mateo Kovacic is reportedly being chased by two Premier League clubs – as both West Ham United and Everton have been offered offered his services by Real Madrid ahead of the new season.

Kovacic completed a £23.25m transfer to Madrid just last summer, but things have never really got going for the 22-year-old. He was able to make make 25 appearances for Los Blancos, but couldn’t cement himself a starting place in the middle of the park due to the inspirational form shown by his international teammate Luka Modric and World Cup winner Toni Kross.

Brought to the club by then-manager Rafa Benitez from Inter Milan, the Croatian box to box midfielder is also rumoured to have received interest from Serie A champions Juventus. However, it is thought that he would prefer a move to the Premier League – as, having struggled for games alongside Madrid’s cast of superstars, Kovacic sees England as a place where he could flourish.

After a season that saw him repeatedly in and out of the team at Madrid, Kovacic then failed to feature much in Croatia’s run to the knockout rounds of Euro 2016 before they lost to Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal side. Despite his lack of action for both club and country, Real are adamant that they will not let him go for less than £30m according to the Daily Mail as they look to make a profit from his sale.

That amount will seem a lot to both Ronald Koeman and Slaven Bilic even with today’s inflated transfer prices, especially given his lack of game time for both club and country.

However, the good news for both managers is that Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane is also open to the idea of letting him leave the Santiago Bernabéu on loan, in an effort to give the young maestro more time on the pitch than he would get sat on Madrid’s bench for another season.

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Reports suggest that Real Madrid have Arsenal defender Laurent Koscielny in their sights for a move this summer.

The 30-year-old is currently enjoying representing host nation France in Euro 2016 and, due to his becoming one of Europe’s top centre-backs, French news website FootMercato are claiming that Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane is maintaining a keen interest in him.

Within in the same article, they also claimed that the Gunners’ star defender Koscielny could arrive at the Santiago Bernabéu this summer as a direct replacement for fellow Frenchman Raphaël Varane, if he were to leave Madrid – following speculation that he has been linked with a transfer to Arsenal’s Premier League rivals Manchester United.

Koscielny arrived at Arsenal for a reported sum of £8.45m back in 2010 and – despite suffering in what was a difficult start to his career at the Emirates Stadium – he has gone on to make 180 Premier League appearances and is now regarded as one of the best players in his position in the league.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger will be desperate to hold on to Koscielny, who has played every minute of France’s four games at Euro 2016 so far and will look to continue that record when the hosts entertain Euro 2016 surprise side Iceland on Sunday evening.

The London club have only two other recognised centre-backs at the club, German World Cup winner Per Mertesacker and Gabriel. Calum Chambers can also deputise in the position, but was rarely used in the role throughout last season.

Another stumbling block in Koscielny leaving is that he is under contract with the Gunners until 2019 and is reported wanted by a significant portion of Arsenal’s fans as Mikel Arteta’s successor as Arsenal captain.

However, Madrid hope that the opportunity to turn out for Los Blancos at the Santiago Bernabéu under French legend Zidane would be enough to convince Koscielny to board the plane to Spain.

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Eden Hazard has yet again been linked with a move to Real Madrid – following his fantastic performances at Euro 2016.

The Chelsea star had a disappointing campaign last season – as Chelsea weakly surrendered their Premier League crown to surprise package Leicester City – but Hazard appears to have returned to his best with his showings for Belgium so far this season.

By helping his country to a quarter-final spot at Euro 2016 – in which they will face Gareth Bale’s Wales side tonight – the 25-year-old has played himself back into contention for a move to Madrid, according to Spanish newspaper Marca.

Zidane has been a long-time admirer of the Belgian, having been the man to bring Hazard to the attention of Florentino Perez when the winger was still at French club Lille.

Hazard was the driving force in Belgium’s 4-0 victory over Group F winners Hungary in the last 16 and, while Chelsea are keen to retain his services for another season, reports have circulated that they’d consider a £35m deal that also included Madrid forward Alvaro Morata.

Chelsea have already signed Hazard’s Belgium teammate, striker Michy Batshuayi for a fee of £33m from Marseille, but they also appear to still be interested in Morata – who scored two goals for Spain at Euro 2016 – despite the £40m-rated forward having only just returned to the club.

Morata was sold to Italian champions Juventus in 2014, but Madrid recently chose to activate a £24m buyback clause in the 23-year-old’s contract to see him make a return to the Santiago Bernabéu.

Chelsea are not the only Premier League club interested in Morata’s services either – as Arsenal are keen on the forward who helped Juve to claim a fifth consecutive Serie A title last season – and Morata’s agent Juanma Lopez has also confirmed that the Spanish forward has offers on the table regarding a move to England.

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