David Alaba set to confirm he will leave Bayern Munich on free transfer
By Tom Gott
Bayern Munich defender David Alaba is expected to confirm his departure from the club on Tuesday in an attempt to end some of the speculation about his future.
The 28-year-old, whose current deal expires in the summer, has rejected Bayern's attempts to tie him down to a new contract, and while the club have publicly admitted Alaba is likely to depart, there has been no official confirmation thus far.
However, according to Bild, that will change on Tuesday, when Alaba is expected to stand in front of the media and announce his decision to leave Bayern at the end of the season. SPORT1's Florian Plettenberg states the revelation will come at a press conference at 1pm (GMT).
Alaba will announce his departure, but he will not comment on what the future holds for him. He is yet to decide on his next move, but wants to at least remove some of the speculation by confirming he will be playing for a new team next season.
Both reports name Real Madrid as the favourites to land Alaba. Fabrizio Romano notes that the Austrian already has a verbal agreement to move to the Santiago Bernabeu, but he has not put pen to paper on anything just yet.
His priority is to move to Real, but Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City are all on Alaba's tracks and the defender is no longer against the idea of a move to the Premier League.
Sources have confirmed to 90min that the only real competition for Alaba at the moment has come from Chelsea, who are the only English side to have made a firm offer to the 28-year-old.
Liverpool and City are both interested but have made it clear that they will only pull the trigger on a move if they feel Alaba is 100% committed to the move. His desire to join Real has scuppered things at the minute, but with no agreement reached just yet, things can change.
There will be no updates on that in Tuesday's press conference. Instead, Alaba will simply confirm the worst-kept secret around these days by revealing his time at the Allianz Arena will come to an end this summer.
Bayern are already braced for his departure, having struck a deal to sign RB Leipzig's Dayot Upamecano, while Reading left-back Omar Richards is also set to join the German giants for next season.