Ibrahima Konat\u00e9\u2019s attempted contract renewal at Liverpool collapsed after a season-long negotiation in 2025\u201326 that repeatedly stalled on the specifics of bonus payments. Negotiations ran for almost the entire campaign, with the two sides reportedly aligned on length and base salary but divided over additional incentive clauses.<\/p>\n
According to Fabrizio Romano, it was not the proposed length of the deal nor the salary that caused the impasse but the structure of the extras. The report says there were “extra bonuses” linked to winning trophies and regular bonuses tied to appearance milestones and other targets. What had been a “close” agreement ultimately failed to be finalised over those details, and Konat\u00e9 left Anfield after five seasons to seek a new chapter.<\/p>\n
Real Madrid have again been linked to the defender, with recent reports claiming a verbal four-year agreement is in place that awaits Florentino P\u00e9rez\u2019s re-election. The club\u2019s recent habit of signing established names on free transfers has been noted; examples cited include Kylian Mbapp\u00e9, Antonio R\u00fcdiger, David Alaba and Trent Alexander-Arnold. If completed, the deal would reunite Konat\u00e9 with Alexander-Arnold and add another France international to a squad already featuring Mbapp\u00e9, Aur\u00e9lien Tchouam\u00e9ni, Eduardo Camavinga and Ferland Mendy. The report also notes Konat\u00e9 was part of the group that won five trophies together, including the 2024\u201325 Premier League title.<\/p>\n
Konat\u00e9\u2019s departure leaves Liverpool light at centre back. The Frenchman made 51 appearances in 2025\u201326 and has been a dependable option in a position that now lists an ageing Virgil van Dijk, the injury-prone Joe Gomez and the unproven Giovanni Leoni, who suffered a season-ending ACL injury in September. J\u00e9r\u00e9my Jacquet is due to arrive this summer, but the 20-year-old could require time to adapt to the Premier League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Konat\u00e9 left Liverpool after talks over bonuses collapsed; Real Madrid move awaits P\u00e9rez re-election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14169,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172,987],"tags":[1073,1081,983],"class_list":["post-14170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","category-real-madrid","tag-acl-injury","tag-adaptation","tag-agents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}