Corinthians made an offer to take Cristiano Ronaldo to Brazil, club president Duilio Monteiro Alves has revealed, but were blown out of the water by the contract Al Nassr presented.
90min learned in December that the offer on the table to Ronaldo was worth £250m. The deal is set to run until 2025, by which time the former Manchester United star will be 40.
Al Nassr president Musalli Al-Muammar has also suggested there is more to it than football.
“The agreement with Ronaldo is not limited to football, as it will support the academy of the club that we intend to build, in addition to showing our history and bringing its fame to football fans,” he explained when the player was unveiled.
“The agreement is commercially beneficial for us in terms of profitability.”
Ronaldo listed the countries he had rejected offers from to choose Al Nassr and Saudi Arabian football, naming Brazil, Australia, the United States, Portugal and Europe as a whole. One of the clubs reported to have been close was bizarrely Sporting Kansas City in MLS.
But the understanding is that while Ronaldo expected to have opportunities to join a club competing in the UEFA Champions League, those offers didn’t come. Bayern Munich publicly ruled themselves out and it has been reported that Manchester United’s offer to subsidise his salary for a Champions League team to take him off their hands for £80,000 per week wasn’t taken up.
Among those he is now confirmed to have turned down in favour of Al Nassr is Corinthians, the Brazilian club who won the Copa Libertadores and FIFA Club World Cup in 2012.
“We made an offer to Cristiano Ronaldo. A salary equal to what he earned at United, two-year deal with the help of sponsors,” president Alves told BAND in Brazil.
“I know he also had proposals from Europe. But the proposal from Saudi Arabia was 20 times higher. I spoke six, seven times with Jorge Mendes and, in the end, we sent a proposal through another person.”
Ronaldo was thought to have been earning £480,000 per week at Old Trafford, upwards of £25m per year.
Rumours are rife that Ronaldo and Mendes have split after a 20-year partnership, with claims that the super agent was against the TalkTV interview his long-term client gave to Piers Morgan, seemingly aware of the negative impact it would have on finding a new club.
Credit: 90min.com
