Franck Ribery has told Bayern Munich that he wants to leave the club and join the new generation of 'galacticos' at Real Madrid.

The France international has been at the centre of a long-running saga over the past six months, with Real and Premier League champions Manchester United chasing his signature.

Bundesliga runners-up Bayern have remained adamant that they will not be selling £30million-rated Ribery, but their star asset has now announced his desire to move away from Germany.

The 26-year-old wants to follow Raul Albiol, Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema in agreeing a big-money, summer move to the Bernabeu, delivering another transfer blow to United.

Sir Alex Ferguson was thought to want Benzema, but the Frenchman has snubbed Old Trafford and is on the verge of moving to Spain, and Ribery looks set to do the same.

Evolve
"I have made up my mind, I want to leave," Ribery told L'Equipe. "It will be Real or nothing.

"I am waiting to see how things will evolve. Then, I would like to have a talk with Bayern's hierarchy."

But Bayern's general manager Uli Hoeness insists that Ribery's announcement does not alter their stance.

He said: "Franck wants to join Real? That doesn't change anything to us. Real never did us any concrete proposition.

"The Real officials wanted to come to Munich, but we told them it was useless and they should save some plane tickets.

"We don't need their money, and we will keep Franck come hell or high water."

bye bye ribery

this is the problem with real madrid signing players not all the new boys will get first team football ribery ronaldo kaka and i guess alonso will rule out the midfeild and they look sure to get silva so therefore the team is gonna be too crowded with big players and to be honest i still dont see them as a threat as we havent seen them work well together if i was ribery chelsea would be the better option as hes guaranteed first team football

robben will probably go to spurs anyway

Bayern you greedy rats, he is world class though....they are asking for too much might screw his career no idea.

Well this reminds me of the arshavan saga....but ribery being a player of higher magnitude obviously.

But if the player isnt happy with his current location...a club will just piss him off being greedy and "owning" him

Well its not like Ronaldo wasn't happy when he was at United, he just simply "didn't mind" challenging himself and leaving to a club that he had always dreamed of playing at. That is why he never came out slamming united or doing stupid stuff to say that he wants out.