 |
| Cristiano Ronaldo (right) quit Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United in 2009 |
SIR ALEX FERGUSON has revealed he flew to Portugal in a final attempt to convince Cristiano Ronaldo to stay at Manchester United.
Ferguson was in charge of the Old Trafford club when they sold star forward Ronaldo to Real Madrid in 2009.
The £80million United received from the deal was then a world record transfer fee.
And, speaking during a lecture at Stanford Business School, Sir Alex revealed how his attempts to keep Ronaldo in Manchester failed.
“I flew to Portugal to speak with him because he said that he wasn’t going to come back to England,” Ferguson said.
“He only wanted to go to Real Madrid, it was his lifelong dream.
“Once, he admitted to me that he wanted to retire when he is 35.
"But I told him that he could go on until he is a 40-year-old, [Ryan] Giggs quit when he was 41.”
Ronaldo has broken numerous goalscoring records over his six years at Madrid but there are reports that he is ready to leave the Spanish capital.
United manager Louis van Gaal has already admitted he would like to bring the player back to Old Trafford.
United are reportedly willing to pay Ronaldo £250,000 a week to return to the club he first joined as a teenager in 2003.
Yet Paris Saint-Germain are thought to be preparing a staggering £500,000-a-week contract as they consider replacements for Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Post a Comment Blogger Facebook Disqus