Top 5 release clauses in football

#1 Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema - £886 m

Real Madrid CF know how to ward off interest from rivals.

The top spot on the list is shared by two of Real Madrid's most valuable players, the hard-working, goal-scoring machine, an instant fan favourite and presumably the most important player in Madrid's history, and Cristiano Ronaldo. Jokes aside, Real Madrid have renewed the contracts of the duo from their famed BBC attack and as their release clause suggests, they are deemed extremely important by the club.

While Ronaldo was signed for a record-breaking £80m in the summer of 2009 from Manchester United, the then astronomical figure looks like a bargain when one sees the astounding number of records Ronaldo has rewritten in his time at Madrid.

Extremely marketable and famous for his goal scoring abilities from any sort of range, Ronaldo's achievements are rivalled only by Lionel Messi. With rumours of the player moving back to Manchester surfacing every transfer window, and the player denying it publicly has become a routine.

However, the club were apprehensive of leaving a door open for rivals to bid for him and have inserted a huge release clause.

Karim Benzema joined Madrid from Lyon in the same transfer window when the club signed Ronaldo and Kaka, in 2009. With a team full of star players, Benzema was under a lot of pressure to deliver in front of the goal, and he did it almost immediately.

Although overshadowed by Ronaldo's heroics week in week out, Benzema has kept his place in the lineup for a major part of his Madrid career. Benzema at his prime had all the traits to fit in with ease to the position of the striker.

With his form taking a dip in the recent years, being injured for multiple weeks at a stretch and turning 30 in 2017, many expected him to move away from the Bernabeu, however the owners seem to have a different plan for him and rate him very highly, as evidenced by the release clause in his contract.