Real rule out more signings — for now

REAL MADRID director general Jorge Valdano has ruled out making any more major signings until the Spanish giants can offload some of their existing players.

Madrid have splashed out almost £200 million (€232m) already this summer on bringing in Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Karim Benzema and Raul Albiol, while Alvaro Negredo and Ezequiel Garay have also been added to the squad.

A deal for Getafe midfielder Esteban Granero to return to the Bernabeu also appears to be close, but that could well be the final addition until Madrid, who have been chasing Liverpool duo Xabi Alonso and Alvaro Arbeloa, manage to trim their squad down.

Players such as Javier Saviola, Javi Garcia, Fabio Cannavaro and Jordi Codina have already moved on, but Madrid will be keen to cash in on a number of other first-teamers in order to recoup some of their money and free up some squad space.

“The transfer door will remain closed until some players have left, other than for exceptional cases such as that of Granero,” said Valdano, who admits it has not been easy to offload players.

“There are days when you take a step forward and others a step back. We are continually working on player exits. It’s a difficult market but until the last moment we will continue working hard on finding a possible exit for the players that are not in the coach’s plans.”