The new expanded Club World Cup has faced criticism that it’s little but a transparent money grab for FIFA and their friends, a new summer competition nobody asked for set to heap further physical demands on already overloaded players.
Whether that’s an accurate description of the event, set to kick off from June 15th in the United States, it’s clearly going to be lucrative for some of the participating clubs, with Real Madrid for one expecting to bring in around €100M in prize money for participating.
With that in mind, Liverpool were always going to stick to their guns when it came to allowing Trent Alexander-Arnold to join up with Madrid a month before his contract expired and he was free to join Los Blancos on a free transfer on July 1st.
They were always going to demand compensation. And they appear to have got it to the tune of a deal said to be worth around €10M (£8.4M), though it’s not clear if that number represents the fee Madrid will pay or the fee as well as saved wages.
Regardless the specifics of how it breaks down, it’s a significant number—and will include a significant transfer fee. Madrid had at one stage requested Liverpool to allow Alexander-Arnold to leave early as a favour, which is to say for no compensation.
Previous reports had floated the idea that a €1M fee might bee the agreement—though those fees originally popped up in Spanish reports suggesting that’s what Liverpool were seeking and, in the end, they appear to have missed by a factor of ten.
We can confirm an offer has been accepted for Trent Alexander-Arnold from Real Madrid for his transfer upon the opening of the June transfer window.
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) May 30, 2025