Tottenham captain Cristian Romero has confirmed he is leaving the club ahead of his move to Atletico Madrid being announced.
Atletico have agreed a deal worth in the region of £34.2m (€40m) for Romero, while Spurs retain a 15 per cent sell-on clause.
In a post on Instagram, Romero bade farewell to the fans and said he had achieved his dream of leaving his name in the club’s history as the captain of the side that ended Spurs’ 17-year trophy drought.
“Today, I say goodbye to a place that, for five seasons, was much more than a club. It was my home, my challenge and the place where my family and I built such an important part of our lives.
“I leave with a heart full of memories and enormous pride for everything we lived and achieved together.
“When I arrived, I had a clear dream: to leave my name in this club’s history. I knew the only way was through hard work, sacrifice and achieving something that had seemed so difficult for so long: lifting a trophy again. And we did it.
“The journey wasn’t perfect, but I don’t want that to define my goodbye. I choose to remember the happy moments, the lessons, the people who stood by me and, above all, the love I received during these five years.
“Thank you to everyone at the club who shared this journey with me. Coaches, team-mates, staff and every person working behind the scenes you are all part of my story and have a place in my heart.”
Atletico have been long-term admirers of the Argentina international, and there was an expectation that Spurs would allow Romero to depart this summer if the right offer arrived.
The central defender was always believed to have preferred a move to Atletico, with Inter Milan and Spurs’ north London rivals Arsenal among the other clubs to have been interested.
Romero’s Spurs deal was due to run until the summer of 2029.
The 28-year-old was sent off twice last season during Spurs’ Premier League relegation battle. He then missed the end of the campaign due to a knee injury.
Romero received criticism from supporters when he appeared to be set to watch his boyhood club Belgrano play River Plate in the Argentina Primera Division Apertura final instead of being at Tottenham’s crucial last game against Everton. However, he did ultimately attend the game.
He has made 124 appearances for the club over five seasons, scoring 12 goals and being shown four red cards in the Premier League.
Spurs had appeared to lay the groundwork for Romero’s exit this summer following the arrivals of defenders Jan Paul van Hecke and Marcos Senesi.
‘Spurs not getting value for Romero’
Spurs are set to take a lower fee for Romero than what they received for teenage defender Luka Vuskovic, who joined Brighton in a club-record £50m deal earlier this summer.
Speaking on Sky Sports’ Tottenham summer special podcast, Sky Sports News’ Michael Bridge said of Romero’s exit: “Spurs are not going to get the value for a player of his ability.
“Luka Vuskovic, who didn’t make any competitive appearances for Spurs, will be sold for more than what the club’s captain will go for because he’s gone to a Premier League club.
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Romero’s last game for Spurs ended in tears as he suffered a season-ending injury in the loss at Sunderland
“I think it’s best for all parties that Romero leaves. I think 99.9 per cent of Spurs fans would agree with that.
“On his day, there aren’t many better – he doesn’t make any mistakes for Argentina, but in terms of Tottenham it just feels like it’s his job.
“He adores Argentina, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it feels as if Tottenham is a bit of a chore for him and it’s gone a bit too much that way.”
Could Romero have joined Arsenal?
Earlier this month, one source had told Sky Sports News that Arsenal had looked into Romero as an option to bolster their centre-back options.
However, it never progressed beyond interest, with Spurs reluctant to let their captain join a Premier League side, let alone their fiercest rivals Arsenal.
“There was talk that Romero would have happily accepted a move to Arsenal,” Bridge told Sky Sports’ Tottenham summer special podcast.
“There were no club-to-club talks on this, but when you hear that then that’s the final nail for Tottenham supporters.”
The north London rivals tend not to do transfer business with one another. The last transfer negotiated between the two clubs came 49 years ago when goalkeeper Pat Jennings joined Arsenal from Spurs in a deal worth a reported £45,000.
O’Hara: Time for Romero to move on
Also speaking on Sky Sports’ Tottenham summer special podcast, ex-Spurs midfielder Jamie O’Hara said of Romero: “He’s a bit of a liability. When he plays, he costs us games, points and red cards.
“I just think his attitude towards the board and the way he was, I just think it’s, ‘All right, thank you, and we’re going to move on’.
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Jamie O’Hara called for Tottenham to sell Romero
“We’ve finished 17th the last two seasons, and he’s been involved. He was captain last season, and the way he acted at the end of the season, when he got injured, and we all saw him crying, that wasn’t for Tottenham; it was more for Argentina and his World Cup.
“And then he goes to Argentina on the last day of the season, and everyone’s like, ‘Where’s Romero?’ So that situation for me needs to be put to bed. I don’t think we need any of that bad publicity around us.
“Get as much as we can for him; let him move on. We’ve got back-up now with Van Hecke and Senesi, so thank you, see you later.”
Spurs are set to make a loss on Romero, who joined from Atalanta for around £42m in the summer of 2021.
O’Hara said of Atletico’s £34.2m deal for Romero: “The problem is there’s a premium for English clubs, who will pay over the odds for people with European clubs inflating the fee.
“The problem is if you’re going to go and sell him to Atletico Madrid, they haven’t got the money.
“If we were selling him to Man Utd, we could probably get £60m-70m for him. But the problem is if you sell a player to Europe, they just don’t have the money that the Premier League clubs have, so you have to accept that it’s going to be a lesser fee than what maybe you think you can get for him.
“He wants to go to Atletico Madrid. He just feels like an Atletico Madrid player. I just feel like you’ve just got to take that one on the chin and move on from it.”
Romero’s exit signals new era at Spurs
Romero is set to leave Spurs after five years at the club
Speaking on Sky Sports’ Tottenham summer special podcast, Sky Sports News senior football news editor Lyall Thomas said: “Quite a top figure in the football industry said to me, ‘Go and watch Romero’s role in the second goal in Spurs’ 3-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest at home last season’.
“I watched him, and it was arms in the air, not tracking the player back who ended up scoring, which contributed to the goal.
“That was Spurs when they needed their captain the most, and he just wasn’t there in that moment, so that says it all.
“It’s time to move on from that era of Spurs and into the new era.
“This has been shown by some of the players they’ve brought in, which is not just to have an impact on the field but to have an impact on the dressing room and sort that area of the club.
“It’s a move that suits Romero to go and work with his compatriot [Diego] Simeone. I can imagine they will suit each other down to the ground. It just fits. The planets are aligned on this one.”
