Tottenham Confirm Cristian Romero’s Exit As Argentina Defender Agrees Deal With Atletico Madrid

BY Mubarak Bello
August 15, 2026
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Tottenham Hotspur have reached an agreement with Atletico Madrid for the transfer of club captain Cristian “Cuti” Romero, bringing an end to the Argentina defender’s five-year stay in North London.

The deal, confirmed by Tottenham on their official website on Saturday, is worth in the region of €40m including add-ons, with the Premier League club reportedly retaining a 15 per cent sell-on clause on any future sale.

Romero joined Spurs from Atalanta in the summer of 2021 and went on to make 156 appearances across all competitions, establishing himself as a key figure in the side that ended the club’s 17-year trophy drought by winning the UEFA Europa League in the 2024-25 season.

He was rewarded for that campaign with the captaincy for the following season. In its farewell statement, the club described him as having been a key player in Tottenham’s Europa League triumph before wishing him well for the future.

The defender arrives at Atletico with an already decorated international career behind him. Romero had won the Copa America with Argentina shortly before joining Tottenham and later became only the second Spurs player to lift the World Cup, following Argentina’s victory over France in Qatar in 2022.

He added a second Copa America title in 2024 and reached another World Cup final this past summer. Before his move to England, the 28-year-old, who was born in Cordoba, began his career at Belgrano and had spells in Italy with Genoa, Juventus and Atalanta before Spurs turned his initial loan into a permanent deal.

The move reunites Romero with fellow Argentine and Atletico manager Diego Simeone, who had long been an admirer of the defender and pushed for his signature over the past two transfer windows.

With Romero’s Spurs contract still running until 2029, the north London club will fall short of the profit they might have commanded had they sold him at his peak value, though the switch is seen as timely given the player’s growing preference for a return to La Liga-style football under Simeone’s system.