24th December, 2012
Cristiano Ronaldo has told friends and former Manchester United team-mates that he may dump Real Madrid and would love to move back to his former side.
A day after Sir Alex Ferguson said he would love to have the attacker back at Old Trafford the 27-year-old has admitted he wants to ‘come home’, according to The Sun on Sunday.
The player has waited 11 months for Real Madrid to give him a new deal, but reports say he can force his way out in the summer just as he did when he was at Manchester United.
In 2009, United lost their battle to keep Ronaldo who forced a move for a world-record £80m fee.
The frustrated Ronaldo watched Lionel Messi land a new six-year deal at Barcelona worth over £100m.
The winger was promised a new contract himself in January by Real president Florentino Perez.
But it is yet to be signed and last week Madrid were playing catch-up, saying Ronaldo will get a six-year deal worth up to £25m a season.
Naturally it will never come to that but how has it all come to this?
Ronaldo lived the Bernabeu dream by joining his “boyhood” team but that all seems a long time ago.
Ronaldo has not felt valued in Madrid for some time. He is still on his original Real contract, while Messi has signed SIX new deals at Barca in seven years.
In addition, the winger has never felt the club support his quest to be crowned FIFA’s Player of the Year.
The Ballon D’Or means everything to the Portuguese star — it is what drives him.
But Perez did not attend the UEFA Champions League draw when Barcelona’s Andres Iniesta picked up the Best Player in Europe award last August.
Barca president Sandro Rosell was there to watch his own star collect the trophy and Ronaldo admitted he was ‘sad’.
It was the final straw. No new deal and no support to win individual accolades made Ronaldo explode.
Fergie cunningly said last week that “Ronaldo is as good as Messi” — giving the winger the praise he feels he does not get from his own club.
And United’s Patrice Evra chipped in by saying if he came back he would “win the Ballon D’Or”.
The Portugal superstar has scored an incredible 170 goals in 170 matches for Madrid.
But new Spanish laws will increase income tax from 24 per cent to 52 per cent meaning that Real would effectively have to double Ronaldo’s wages to keep his take home pay approximately the same.