Florentino Perez ‘wanted to stop the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo’

Florentino Perez tried to stop the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo, according to the Real Madrid president’s predecessor Ramón Calderón.

Madrid snapped up the Portugal star for a world-record £80m from Manchester United in the summer of 2009 but Calderón, who served as the La Liga club’s president between 2006 and 2009, says that Perez was not keen on the forward.

“Florentino Perez wanted to stop the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo,” Calderón said on TeleB.

“When he became president he found that Cristiano was already signed, and I know that he wanted to stop it, but [Jorge] Valdano and Jose Angel Sanchez convinced him not to.

“They said he was mad. He did not look kindly on it and Ronaldo knows this. That may be the source of their problems. Cristiano Ronaldo is in a difficult situation. This president has not had very positive reactions to those players that he has not signed.

“This was demonstrated with [Arjen] Robben, [Wesley] Sneijder, [Gonzalo] Higuain, and the same thing is happening with Ronaldo.”

Ronaldo’s future has been the subject of speculation this season after he announced that he was unhappy in Madrid for “professional reasons” back in the autumn – and Calderón would not be surprised to see him leave the club.

“I would love Cristiano to continue at Madrid. Yet experience shows that if a player does not want to stay, he must leave and be where he wants to be. Slavery has long been abolished.”