Sir Alex Ferguson has revealed
Manchester United 'explored' the potential for a deal to sign
Bayern Munich ace Franck Ribery.
France international Ribery
has been a target for many of Europe's leading clubs,
with Spanish rivals Barcelona and Real Madrid expressing an
interest.
Chelsea have also been linked with the winger, but Bayern have
been adamant that the club will not be cashing in on the
26-year-old.
United were rumoured to be readying a bid as the Premier League
champions sought to spend some of the world record windfall from
the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real.
However, Ferguson confirmed a polite enquiry was met with a firm response
from Bayern, who sold Owen Hargreaves to United two years ago.
"We didn't try to buy Ribery, we explored it in a nice, quiet
way when David Gill was at one of his meetings with Bayern in March," said
Ferguson.
"They told him, 'absolutely no chance' and the one thing you can
say about Bayern is that, when they say something, they mean
it.
"When we negotiated with them over Hargreaves, at the beginning
they said 'no', but they also said that, if it ever changed, their
minds, we'd be the first to know.
"It was exactly the same this time. There is no way that they
will sell Ribery."
Ferguson also considered signing Karim Benzema from Lyon, but conceded he did not want to pay over the
odds for the Real new boy.
He added: "We tried to spend it (the Ronaldo money) on Karim
Benzema as, at 21, I felt that there would be an improvement
there.
"He is tough, good physique, a good goalscoring record, so it
was worth going a wee bit extra for him because of his age.
"But when it went to £42million, it was beyond his value. We
went to £35million and I think that was fair."
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