Madrid Squad Given Big Bonus For Barça Win

Real Madrid's players have been given an extra reason to celebrate their victory over Barcelona just before Christmas as they been given €20,000 each as a reward.

The victory in Camp Nou in the final league of last year saw los Merengues move seven points clear of their arch rivals, a lead they maintained last weekend.

Julio Baptista scored the only goal of the game to give the club only their second victory since 1983 in the home of the Blaugrana.

So happy was Madrid president Ramón Calderón that he is preparing to hand out a bonus totalling around €500,000 to the squad for their performance that night.

That works out to be around €20,000 as even the players that were not picked will benefit from their teammates' display in the encounter.

The agreement to reward the players was made verbally at a casual meeting at the club's training ground in the week leading up to the game.

Now, Calderón has lived up to his word and has given permission for the money to be transferred over to the individual account of every member of Bernd Schuster's squad.