Making his point: United manager Ferguson has the full
support of the Glazers in the Ronaldo saga
Any doubt that Cristiano Ronaldo is to stay at
Manchester United has been swept away by Sir Alex Ferguson, who
said the club's American owners, the Glazer family, would ''sit a
player in the stand" rather than yield to pressure from Real Madrid
to sell the two-time Footballer Of The Year.
Ferguson has accused Real of courting Ronaldo through
the press, even though his contract has several years to run.
''What they are doing is awful," the United manager said, and
a complaint to Fifa is
expected. But
Ferguson promised Real's tactics would not work. ''I've had a
couple of meetings with the Glazers," he said. ''And their attitude
was 'To hell with them'. They would sit a player in the stand - I'm
telling you - just to prove a point. They're not going to give in.
They've got balls and I've been delighted with them in that
respect."
What seems to be going on, as Ronaldo prepares for
Portugal's opening European Championship match against Turkey next
Saturday, is a game involving the player's agent, Jorge Mendes.
Recently the United board took the unusual step of denying reports
that they were ready to negotiate improved terms with Ronaldo. But
Ferguson would probably support any measure to keep the 42-goal
star of the Premier and Champions League double and he remains
utterly confident that this time, whatever may have happened in the
cases of David Beckham and Ruud van Nistelrooy, the Spaniards will
not get their man.
Real Madrid sporting director Predrag Mijatovic,
meanwhile, has insisted that they have no agreement already in
place with Ronaldo. "He is an objective, but we cannot do anything
if his club do not want to part with him. Until this time we do not
have anything with the player," he told Portuguese newspaper Diario
de Noticias.