Real Madrid’s Franco Mastantuono signing: How they won race for €63.2m wonderkid

Vinicius Junior, Rodrygo, Federico Valverde… and now Franco Mastantuono. Real Madrid have form for signing South America’s most promising young talents.

An Argentina international who plays on the right wing or as a No 10, Mastantuono was unveiled as a new Madrid player today on his 18th birthday, having agreed to move from River Plate two months ago in a deal that will cost the Spanish giants €63.2million (£54.6m; $74.1m)

Advertisement

Madrid saw off rival interest from teams including Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United to sign Mastantuono. This is the story of how they did it — including a crucial call from their new head coach Xabi Alonso and influential chief scout Juni Calafat playing a pivotal role once again.

Madrid’s reputation for signing young players from South America is largely down to the work of Brazilian-Spanish chief scout Calafat, who was crucial in sealing those deals for Vinicius Jr, Rodrygo and Valverde, among others.

Reports in Spain suggested Santiago Solari, Madrid’s Argentine director of football who previously took interim charge of the first team, was involved in the pursuit of his young countryman. But club sources — who, like all those cited in this article, asked to remain anonymous to protect relationships — say Calafat played the most important role.

“Juni mastered this perfectly,” one source said. “Solari talked about the boy, but it’s Juni who travels and wins everyone’s favour.”

Madrid first became aware of Mastantuono at the end of 2022, when Argentina hosted a friendly youth tournament at their Ezeiza training complex outside Buenos Aires. He barely played in those games and was the backup to now Manchester City midfielder Claudio Echeverri, but still several people on Calafat’s staff began to compile reports on him.

These documents highlighted Mastantuono’s impressive physique and that he still had room to grow. Calafat’s scouts admired the lad’s one-on-one play and how he controlled games while showing personality on the pitch.

Madrid’s concrete interest in him dates back to at least April last year. That January, Mastantuono made his senior River Plate debut at 16 in a League Cup game. He scored his first goal a month later, appeared in the Copa Libertadores (the South American equivalent of the Champions League) for the first time in the April and went on to make his top-flight debut in May, all under River’s coach at the time Martin Demichelis.

Advertisement

Early that year, Mastantuono agreed a new contract with the Buenos Aires club until December 2026. That included a €35million release clause for this year’s winter transfer window and one worth €45m for this summer. River sources said this was due to rise to €50m in the final 10 days of the current transfer market.

A 16-year-old Mastantuono comes on for his senior debut in January 2024 (Marcelo Endelli/Getty Images)

By then, Mastantuono was already attracting other suitors. Figures at City monitored him at around the same time his fellow River midfielder Echeverri joined the English side in January 2024. Another interested club were Marseille, with their president Pablo Longoria meeting Mastantuono’s agents around that time to test the waters.

Talks between the youngster’s camp and Madrid took place in 2024, but the deal went cold for several months. Even then, his agency Area Sport remained in contact with Best of You, another agency which has a very close relationship to Madrid and which was involved in Kylian Mbappe’s signing last year, as well as marketing for new manager Alonso. This year, agents from both companies were spotted at Madrid’s Valdebebas training ground and in the Bernabeu’s VIP boxes.

In the meantime, other clubs made plays for Mastantuono. These included Bayer Leverkusen in this year’s winter transfer window, when Alonso was still their head coach and Mastantuono’s release clause was €35million.

The German side held talks with the player and offered him the chance to be the successor to Florian Wirtz — who has since joined Liverpool — suggesting they could be a bridge club where he could develop before joining Madrid a few years down the road. But Leverkusen dawdled and other teams were better positioned when they finally decided to make their moves for Mastantuono weeks later.

Leverkusen made a move for Mastantuono when Alonso was still in charge (Maria Gracia Jimenez/Soccrates/Getty Images)

At the end of March, a delegation of River officials, including president Jorge Brito and vice-president Ignacio Villarroel, travelled to the Bernabeu for the home match against Leganes to meet the Madrid board. At the time, River executive sources told The Athletic the get-together was to do with sharing information about ticketing, membership and stadium renovation projects, and not to do with Mastantuono directly. But it was clear the two clubs had built up a strong relationship.

Advertisement

Those same River sources said Mastantuono would only leave for the price of his release clause and that they did not intend to let him go until 2026. Their general secretary Stefano Di Carlo told ESPN it was a “certainty” he would not leave this calendar year.

Initially, that was the intention within Mastantuono’s camp, too. They wanted him to become the most expensive player sale in Argentine football and depart on good terms with the club whose academy he’d joined in 2019. Those voices close to him believed River wanted to renew his deal to avoid him leaving as a free agent when his previous contract was due to expire in 2026 — and they showed a willingness to do this.

But the race for his signature was heating up. A spectacular free-kick goal against River’s fierce rivals Boca Juniors at the end of April underlined why so many clubs were interested in him. It came in the same week he had a geography exam which River coach Marcelo Gallardo reportedly asked his school to postpone.

⚪🔝 Franco Mastantuono finalmente será jugador del Real Madrid y recordamos el GOLAZO de tiro libre que le convirtió a Boca en el último Superclásico con la camiseta de River. pic.twitter.com/EJZdTHhDj1 — TNT Sports Argentina (@TNTSportsAR) June 13, 2025

In mid-May, Mastantuono’s agents based in Argentina travelled to Madrid. They met several clubs on that trip, with PSG, Atletico, Barca and United among those circling. The two best-positioned teams were PSG and Atletico, with his fellow Argentine Diego Simeone, the latter’s manager, a big admirer of Mastantuono. “Every weekend, big clubs from Europe came to see him at our stadium,” a River source told The Athletic.

PSG made a significant effort to sign Mastantuono. They sent scouts to watch him in late March and representatives held informal talks after travelling to Argentina “several times”, according to a River source. By late May, sources close to River and Mastantuono himself say, as has been reported, that PSG head Luis Enrique called the youngster to try to convince him to join his side. The new European champions declined to comment when this was put to them.

At that point, Madrid’s pursuit of Mastantuono appeared to have cooled. But when they decided to reignite their interest, they made swift progress. A voice from the player’s entourage says a trip Calafat made to Argentina and a call from Alonso — who was appointed at the end of May — were “fundamental”. Those in Mastantuono’s camp say his priority was always to join Madrid, a view shared within the club.

“When we really went after him, the boy just wanted to come,” a source at Madrid said. “For a boy of his age to be called by the coach of Real Madrid and told how important he will be for him…”

The Argentine playing for River Plate at the recent Club World Cup (Buda Mendes/Getty Images)

River were clear that Mastantuono would only move if his €45million release clause was met, and that is the sum they will receive from the deal that was finally sealed with Madrid and announced on June 13. The actual cost to Madrid will be higher than that — €63.2m. The €18.2m difference between those two sums goes towards various levies, from taxes to payments to the Argentine footballers’ union.

Advertisement

Curiously, the biggest slice of the extra costs was claimed by the Spanish tax authorities. Some €11.8m, or 19 per cent of the total sum paid by Madrid, went to their own nation’s tax collector, despite the profit-making entity, River, being in another country some 6,000 miles away.

That is a consequence of tax arrangements between Spain and Argentina. The two governments have a ‘double tax’ treaty in place, which aims to avoid the same income in an international transaction being taxed in two places. But the agreement grants power of taxation to the destination country — in this case, Spain — to tax the gain in line with its own regulations.

Because the transfer of Mastantuono’s playing registration has been made with the aim of his services being used in Spain, the Spanish authorities deem the profits generated by River on the deal as a capital gain subject to Spain’s Non-Resident Income Tax. That puts them, and indeed any other Argentine club selling players to Spanish buyers, on the hook for a chunky tax bill (the same is also true for transfers from Brazilian clubs).

It is therefore River who owe the Spanish authorities in this instance.

There is a further complication in that the tax is due upon the agreement being made — regardless of when the buying club have agreed to pay the transfer fee. With more fees in the modern game being paid in instalments, the chance of such deals causing a cash squeeze on Argentine sellers is clear.

In this instance, Madrid agreed to, in effect, foot the bill and ‘gross up’ the fee payable at their end. That way, River still get €45million from Mastantuono’s sale.

River said the total fee was an Argentine transfer record. They also wanted Mastantuono to stay and play in the Copa Libertadores’ knockout stages over the coming weeks and months, but the statement announcing his move said he would join Madrid on August 14 — the day he turns 18 and also when River visit Paraguay’s Libertad in the first leg of a round of 16 tie.

Advertisement

After the move was announced, Mastantuono did still feature for River at the Club World Cup — the Argentine club were knocked out at the group phase, with the youngster leaving the pitch in floods of tears following their decisive 2-0 defeat by Inter. He trained by himself after returning from the United States, sitting out River’s next four league games and a Copa Argentina tie before last week finally arriving in the Spanish capital, having travelled alone to Madrid.

It remains to be seen how he will be used by Alonso — a source connected to the club believes he could play as a winger, with 20-year-old Turkey playmaker Arda Guler getting moved to midfield, as at the Club World Cup.

As for any concerns over the high fee, a voice at Madrid pointed to how other Calafat signings have flourished after being brought in for similar amounts.

“All players can seem expensive and cheap, depending on who’s valuing the cases, but eventually the pitch values them. It’s the grass that speaks,” that source said. “Vinicius, Rodrygo… all of them could seem expensive because of their age. And look what they have given to the club.”

Additional reporting: Tomas Hill Lopez-Menchero, Chris Weatherspoon, Dermot Corrigan.

(Top photo: Getty Images. design: Eamonn Dalton)

Click here to read article