Bellingham hails "proudest day" after joining Madrid

Jude Bellingham hailed the "proudest day" of his life as he spoke for the first time as a Real Madrid player.

Real announced the signing of the 19-year-old England international on Wednesday and he was unveiled in the Spanish capital on Thursday afternoon after signing a six-year deal.

The LaLiga giants paid an initial €103million to land Bellingham, who moved to Germany from boyhood club Birmingham in 2020.

He had been linked with a return to England with the likes of Manchester City or Liverpool but ultimately decided to join the record 14-time European Cup winners.

With his parents watching on, Bellingham said: "Thank you for everyone for joining me on the proudest day of my life.

"The day where I joined the greatest football club in the history of the game. There are a lot of people to thank for getting me to this point - Borussia Dortmund and Birmingham City, the people that worked there.

"Also the bosses here (at Real Madrid); Mr President (Florentino Perez), Juni Calafat (scout), Jose Angel (chief executive).

"Of course, most importantly, my family for all of the support and making the deal as easy as possible, so thank you very much and finally, Hala Madrid."

Bellingham was recently named Bundesliga player of the season after his starring role for Dortmund, who missed out on the title in agonising fashion on the final day of the campaign.

Upon his move to Dortmund, Birmingham made the unexpected step to retire his number 22 jersey at St Andrews.

Bellingham went on to score 24 goals in 132 appearances in Germany, winning the DFB Pokal in 2021.

He scored his first England goal in their World Cup win over Iran but is absent from the squad to face Malta and North Macedonia in the upcoming Euro 2024 qualifiers due to injury.

Pere