Karim Benzema has revealed that he rejected advances from Manchester United, Barcelona and Internazionale before agreeing a move to Real Madrid. The former Lyon striker, who signed for £30m, was presented to fans at the Bernabéu last night.

During his time with Lyon, Benzema established himself as one of Europe's most admired marksmen – he scored 54 competitive goals in the last two seasons – and he was regularly linked with some of the continent's biggest clubs.

When asked if there had been other suitors, Benzema said: "There were quite a few clubs that contacted me, like Manchester [United], Inter and Barcelona, but I decided to come here.

"Real Madrid are an excellent club. I've dreamt about playing here since I was 15 years old. Florentino [Pérez] spoke to me about the team and the project that he wanted to create. I wanted to play at Real Madrid anyway so he didn't have to convince me of hardly anything."

Benzema is the fourth new arrival to be unveiled by the Spanish giants since Pérez returned to the presidency at the start of June, following in the footsteps of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and Raul Albiol. An estimated 80,000 people turned up for Ronaldo's presentation on Monday, while around 55,000 were in attendance for Kaka's unveiling last week.

The amount of people that turned up to welcome Benzema last night was considerably less, with around 20,000 in the stands, but the Frenchman was still delighted with his reception.

"It was very exciting. Real Madrid fans have a special relationship with the players and I am very grateful for that," he said. "I felt some strong emotions today and that's why I kissed the badge."

Benzema, who has not yet been given a shirt number at his new club, is confident he can be a regular goalscorer at Madrid as well – if he can secure himself a place in what will be a star-studded line-up.

"I don't want to promise a set number of goals, although I hope to score a lot. With players like Kaka, Ronaldo and Raul it will be very easy for us to get goals," said Benzema. "I'm aware that there is great competition at the club and maybe I cannot always play, but I've come here to fight, so it's not going to be a problem."