£60M DOLLAR MAN

LONDON. - Anthony Rudiger is set to bank almost £60million with his mega move to Real Madrid.

The defender is on his way from Chelsea to the Spanish giants and the transfer could be announced as early as this week.

German Rudiger, 29, has agreed a four-year deal that, when wages and signing-on fee are combined, averages out at nearly £300,000 a week.

It eclipses what Chelsea were willing to offer to keep their star centre-half and boss Thomas Tuchel will now turn his attention to plotting to sign a replacement.

And that is likely to mean a fresh attempt to sign Sevilla’s Jules Kounde once his club’s ownership issue is resolved.

Tuchel came close to landing the France centre-back last summer only for Sevilla to raise the price from £42million to £68m overnight.

Kounde still wants to leave in the summer by which time Chelsea should have new owners in place and finance restrictions lifted again.

The club is currently operating under a special licence granted by the Government in light of sanctions being imposed on Russian owner Roman Abramovich.

They are banned from buying and selling players and negotiating new deals with existing ones and that has hampered attempts to hold on to stars like Rudiger.

Chelsea were prepared to make him the highest-paid defender in their history with more than £200k- a-week wages but it was not enough.

Rudiger is leaving and almost certain to be joined in Spain by team-mate Andreas Christensen, who agreed a verbal contract with Madrid’s big rivals Barcelona.

Tuchel admitted on Sunday that the sanctions have harmed Chelsea’s power in the transfer market.

Rookies Trevoh Chalobah and Malang Sarr are being given more game-time but losing two senior defenders in one go is a big blow.

It might be three with Cesar Azpilicueta also out of contract and wanted by Barca — although Chelsea could trigger a one-year extension clause to make him stay.