€100m Real Madrid star reveals Arsenal ‘vultures’ made him ‘feel like a hostage’

Will Ford
Liverpool target Rodrygo
Real Madrid pair Rodrygo and Federico Valverde.

Real Madrid star Federico Valverde has explained why he snubbed the chance to move to Arsenal, claiming he felt “like a hostage” in negotiations over a move to the Emirates.

Valverde has been linked with a move to to the Premier League in recent times before he signed a new contract with Madrid earlier this month – with a release clause of €1bn – which runs until 2028.

The midfielder moved to Madrid from Penaral in 2016, and has been a key part of the senior side since breaking into the first-team squad in the 2018/19 season, but Arsenal came close to signing him before his move to the Spanish giants.

But as the Uruguay international explains, he “never wanted to go to England”, and managed to block out calls from the “vultures” trying to push him to the Emirates.

“If you Google me, you will see stories about how I almost went to Arsenal when I was 16. That’s maybe half-true,” the 25-year-old wrote in his column for The Players’ Tribune.

“It’s nothing against Arsenal, but I never wanted to go to England. At that time, the business side of football took over.

“Certain people were telling me, ‘Who wouldn’t want to go play for Arsenal? You want to stay here in Uruguay? That’s crazy!’. What they were really saying under their breath was, ‘We can all make a lot of money if you go’.

“You realise that your life is not your own in football. Especially at a young age, you feel more like a hostage. Even your family becomes a hostage. Football is an escape to a better life, especially for us in South America, and the vultures know that.

“They put the pressure on you in a ‘nice’ way. ‘Damn, Fede, if you go to Arsenal, you’ll have a nice bed and a shower that stays warm for 30, 40 minutes! Who wouldn’t want that life?’.

“They sent me on trial to London for a week, and I just wasn’t comfortable. If you only think of material things, it sounds great. But we are not robots.

“The reality was that my family couldn’t come to London with me. I’d have to live alone, not speaking the language, at 16-years-old. For every one kid who succeeds in moving overseas, you don’t see the 100 who fail.”