Ramon Calderon Says Cristiano Ronaldo Rejected Barcelona to Join Real Madrid

Thanks to ex-Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon’s wonderful inability to keep quiet, we’re slowly but surely learning more and more about Cristiano Ronaldo’s transfer from Old Traffod to the Bernabéu last summer. Remember how someone at Real Madrid claimed the transfer was arranged a year in advance, in the summer of 2008? And remember how Alex Ferguson spent the 2008/9 season flat out denying that Man Utd had already sold CR9? Well seems they were both right. Sort of.

Here’s what Calderon revealed today:

“On December 8, 2008 Cristiano came to an agreement with Manchester United about joining Real Madrid,” Calderon said. “There was no negotiation about this as he had signed on it.
“The player, in order to show his good faith and desire to come to Madrid, took a financial penalty of 30 million euros (if he pulled out of the deal). But then Barcelona and Internazionale tried to sign him too.

So basically the deal wasn’t 100% signed and sealed, but some sort of (shady?) pre-agreement was in place, which meant that if Ronaldo joined anyone but Real Madrid he’d be €30 million poorer. At least I think that’s what Calderon is saying.

Shady or not, that agreement meant that when both Inter and Barcelona tried to sign C-Ron, the Portuguese stepover machine wasn’t too interested.

“It was a difficult situation for Manchester United because Sir Alex Ferguson is not a friend of Real Madrid and does not see eye to eye with us: we are a rival, in winning titles and directly in European competition.
“But the player solved the problem by keeping his word to join us and rejecting Barca. This showed his determination to not go to any club other than Real Madrid. He rejected them and that is certain.”

So now we know why Calderon is letting the transfer secrets slip out. Seems he’s keen to have a little dig at Barcelona. But I’m not sure it really counts as a rejection if the options were:

a) Join Real Madrid, or
b) Join Barcelona/Inter and pay a €30m penalty.

Again, what kind of non-transfer includes a multi-million euro penalty clause? A suspicious one I say. The only explanation I can think of is that the football Gods (who definitely exist) magically inserted this clause because they saw that letting Cristiano Ronaldo team up with Leo Messi and co. at Barcelona would have meant the end of competitive club football as we know it.

- More on Real Madrid at Real Madrid Offside.
- More on Barcelona at Barcelona Offside.

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Category: Spain La Liga