Sir Alex Ferguson lashed out at Real Madrid on Thursday after reports that Manchester United had agreed to sell them Cristiano Ronaldo, saying he would never do a deal with “that mob.”
Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported that the two clubs had a gentleman’s agreement to transfer Ronaldo to the Bernabeu at the end of the season.
It said the two teams agreed in principle to the deal at the end of a bitter tug-of-war for the Portugal star this year, but pledged a vow of silence.
PHOTO: AP
The paper quoted a conversation this week between a Real Madrid director, Pedro Trapote, and one of his business associates, and said at least two other senior club sources had leaked the news.
But an angry Ferguson said he would never sell his star player to the Madrid side, as relations between the two soccer superpowers hit a new low.
“Do you think I would get into a contract with that mob. Jesus Christ, no chance. I wouldn’t sell them a virus,” he said after watching his side beat Japan’s Gamba Osaka 5-3 to reach the final of the Club World Cup.
“That’s a no,” he added. “There is absolutely no agreement at all between the clubs.”
Ronaldo was touted all summer as an 80 million euro (US$115 million) Real target, with United furious at the Spaniards’ constant efforts to prise him away from Manchester.
The 23-year-old is currently earning £120,000 (US$180,000) a week in a deal through to 2012, but could buy himself out of the contract at the end of the season.
To counter this, reports in England said last month that Ferguson had instructed the Old Trafford hierarchy to work on a new deal to ward off further Spanish overtures.
Ronaldo, who has not hidden his desire to play in Spain one day, refused to talk about Madrid.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said repeatedly when asked. “I just want to win the Club World Cup trophy.”
The United boss said he knew the rumors would begin again with the January transfer window looming and vowed to ignore them.
“I said to [chief executive] David Gill you can bet your life that in January the rumors will start up again,” he said. “We’ve just got to ignore them. We have got a difficult program of matches coming up and need to just play our game and ignore them.”
On Wednesday, Ferguson had hailed Ronaldo’s work ethic and value to the club.
“Over the five years he has been with us, we have seen him develop into the player he is today,” he said. “He always had certain attributes that pointed him towards the very top — his amazing skill, his speed and his courage. In the time he has been with us, he has developed his decision-making.”
He has also become a master marksman, which Ferguson said was down to “practice, practice, practice.”
“As a kid he played center-forward for Sporting Lisbon and our people in Portugal kept telling us that ‘this boy is a great goalscorer,’” Ferguson said. “When he first came to us, we couldn’t see that. All of a sudden, he just blossomed and last season he got 42. That is a measure of a young person wanting to do well, to improve himself by his own determination and ambition to practice all the time.”
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