Last week José María Gutiérrez Hernández (also known as Guti) signed a new contract of renewal with Real Madrid, the team he has played in during his whole career. The 31 year old player succeeds to extend his contract until June 30 of 2011 and it will be renewed year by year once it finishes if both Guti and Real Madrid desire this. It will be a clause of auto-renewal if he plays a minimum of 30 official matches per season. Also, his salary will be of 1.8 million euro, a bit lower than his current one (2.1 million euro) but we can’t forget that this new contract will be for life.
With this agreement, Real Madrid expand to three their number of players with a contract for life - Iker Casillas and Raul González signed their contract last February 14 - and prevent other teams to tempt them. After thirteen seasons at Real Madrid, Guti is now recognised as one of the Spanish team’s emblems as stated by Ramon Calderón. This means they are part of Real Madrid, even after they retire from playing football.
Essential or not, the truth is Guti renewed his contract and he promises to bring Real Madrid as many victories as he can while he is still an active football player. Against FC Barcelona, he has sworn to not be merciful.