Alaba opens up on his decision to join Real Madrid after leaving Bayern Munich

Real Madrid's newest star David Alaba has opened up on his decision to join the club this summer, and also insisted that a number of his Austria team-mates could impress at Euro 2020 to earn moves away.

The versatile Alaba left Bayern Munich after his contract ran down and was promptly snapped up by LaLiga giants Madrid, who offered him a bumper contract.

And now, he has revealed his thoughts on heading to the Bernabeu, and admitted that Madrid had been the best option after his shock departure from Bavaria was officially announced.

Liverpool were one of the clubs also interested in Alaba, as reported by Sportsmail  back in January, but Madrid were the favourites in the race and ultimately pipped them to the signing.

'I have my thoughts and Real Madrid was top of my list so I decided to go there,' he told reporters when quizzed on the interest from Merseyside.

'It (transfer speculation) is motivation. Motivation for all the players who are linked with certain teams in the Premier League or with other clubs as well.

'They can present themselves here at this tournament so it's extra motivation actually rather than a distraction.'

Alaba chose to end his stay at Bayern after 13 years in the Bundesliga, but his departure was marred by his father criticising the club for taking aim at his hefty salary demands.

George Alaba told the Bayern Insider podcast: 'I don't want to go into detail, but those responsible know what really happened.

'I can only say that with the passage of time, positions became very much hardened and that we did not have any kind of discussion about money.

'Therefore, I did not get to understand why, in the end, he did not stop talking about money. The talks started before the Covid.

'I was disappointed because it was used as an excuse in our case when there was some other renovation in the same period of time that passed in a quiet way.'

Outgoing club chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge told Kicker Magazine that Alaba was 'not satisfied' with a rumoured offer of €19.5 million (£16.7m) a year, which was a sizeable increase on his previous earnings of €15 million a year.

Another swipe came from Bayern's ex-president Uli Hoeness, who criticised Alaba's agent, Pini Zahavi, for failing to broker a deal.

Hoeness described the representative as a 'greedy piranha', a term which Alaba's dad took exception to.

'He did not deserve to be called a greedy piranha,' he added. 'I reject it completely. It was leaked that we were asking for 20 million euros to renew, then 19.5. What figure are we left with?'

Alaba will officially begin his time with Real on July 1, and he has previously said that the club were always 'top of my list'.