Real Madrid president confirms Isco new deal is imminent after addressing Barcelona approaches

Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has confirmed that Isco has agreed a new deal with the La Liga giants and the club will make an official announcement in the coming days. Barcelona have been linked with the Spanish midfielder in recent months but Perez says he is not aware of any attempt from Los Blancos' archenemies to sign Isco or any other player from Zinedine Zidane's ranks.

Isco's future at the Santiago Bernabeu came under question earlier last season due to his lack of playing time under Zidane.

In February, the Spain international himself suggested that he could consider leaving Real in the summer if his future was not resolved during the second part of the season.

Real were said to be ready to negotiate his sale in order to avoid losing him for free the following summer as his current contract is due to expire in June 2018.

Catalan radio station RAC 1 reported then that Barcelona approached Isco to offer him a signing bonus of €20m to turn down a new deal at Real and move to the Nou Camp as a free agent once his contract expires.

However, Isco managed to turnaround the situation completely in the second part of the season, taking advantage of Gareth Bale's injury to become a crucial player for Zidane in the club run to a 12th Champions League success.

Multiple reports in Spain since then have claimed that the former Malaga midfielder had thus decided to commit his long-term future to the club by putting pen to paper on a new deal.

On 11 August, AS reported that Isco had agreed a €6m-a-year (£5.5m, £7.2m) to continue at Real Madrid with the club being ready to make it official in a matter of days.

The Spanish publication added that Real had inserted a stunning €700m release clause in the new contract after Barcelona, Manchester City and Bayern Munich made moves in recent times to sound out whether the player would be willing to leave the Bernabeu.

Perez has now failed to disclose the details of the new deal but asked by Cadena Ser whether is true the new deal is done, the president confirmed: "Yes, we will make the official announcement in the coming days. We'll be announcing all the new contract extensions soon. Isco's renewal is done."

"Isco arrived [to Real Madrid] when he was young, with his whole life ahead of him, and he has now become what we anticipated he would. He is still only 25 so he can still get better. We have 11 Spanish players, nine of them from the academy, in a squad of 24. It is a balanced that is paying off.

Isco has not been the only player linked with Barcelona in recent times. Some reports claimed that the La Liga giants also considered making a move to sign the promising Marco Asensio following Neymar's departure to Paris Saint-Germain.

Perez did admit some approaches for Asensio but asked whether Barcelona have tried to 'steal' any player in the summer, he said: "No. As far as I know Barcelona didn't make an attempt to take any of our players. I don't know [whether the reports saying the opposite are true]. People talk a lot in summer. If I had taken the advice of those saying a couple of years ago that we had to sell Isco, we would be taking about a disaster today.

Meanwhile, speaking about Asensio, he added: "I believe that there were inquiries for him but everybody knows he is happy here and we're happy with him. He is a player for the future and he is going to give us a lot to be happy about. He came to us when he was very young. He didn't come through the academy but as he arrived at such a young age we consider him a youth product.

"At Madrid all the players have enormous buy-out clauses, it is a dissuasive device: if somebody wants to buy one of our players they can call us and we'll tell them if it's possible or not. I can't remember what Marco's clause is it but it is high. Even if it was 10 million euros he wouldn't go anywhere because is happy at Real Madrid."