Madrid: Cristiano Ronaldo will be staying at Spanish giants Real Madrid and no offer has been received to tempt him away, club president Florentino Perez insisted Tuesday.
Unhappy Ronaldo has been linked to Manchester United and other top clubs after reportedly threatening to leave Real and quit Spain after running into problems with tax authorities.
“Ronaldo is a Real player and will continue to be so as far as we are concerned,” Perez told Marca sports daily Tuesday. “No offer has been received for him.”
According to media reports Ronaldo is unsettled at Madrid because he believes Real did not back him as fully as he had hoped in his dispute with the taxman.
And he has also complained on multiple occasions in the past at his treatment at the hands of Real supporters, who have resorted to jeering and booing his performance on the pitch.
In an earlier report Marca said Ronaldo has told his teammates he was leaving and “there is no turning back”.
Portuguese sports daily A Bola had also claimed that Perez had already been informed of the 32-year-old’s decision.
However, Perez said that he had not spoken to Ronaldo, who is on duty for Portugal at the Confederations Cup in Russia, which ends on July 2.
Even so, Perez said he was convinced Ronaldo would stay and affirmed that his Real contract was protected by a one billion euro (Dh4 billion) release clause.
“I have not spoken with him. We don’t want to disturb his concentration with the national team,” said Perez.
“But something really bizarre would have to happen if he were to leave this club.”
Perez said he could understood why the four-times world player of the year had been upset after he was accused last week of evading 14.7 million euros in tax through offshore companies.
He said that Ronaldo had clearly done nothing wrong and Perez was appalled that the “presumption of innocence is not respected” by the media who have branded the played a delinquent.
Perez, a 70-year-old construction magnate, was elected unopposed Monday for a third term in charge of Europe’s most successful club.
His first big challenge is keeping Ronaldo at the club he joined in 2009 from Manchester United for a record 94 million euros ($105.3 million).
There has been speculation that Ronaldo is trying to put pressure on Real so that they will bear some of the burden of an eventual fine for tax evasion as Barcelona did for Lionel Messi.
Meanwhile, Perez also said Tuesday Real turned down the opportunity to sign goalkeeper David de Gea from Manchester United last summer — and played down the possibility of bidding for the Spain international again.
Madrid were on the verge of bringing former Atletico Madrid goalkeeper De Gea back to Spain in 2015 but the move, which included sending Real custodian Keylor Navas to United as a makeweight, was derailed as the clubs failed to close the deal before the transfer window closed.
Costa Rica goalkeeper Navas was criticised at several points last season for unconvincing displays which cost Real points leading to reports in the Spanish media that the club would make another move for De Gea.
Navas’s form improved towards the end of the campaign, however, as his side won the double of the La Liga title and the Champions League.
Perez said Madrid were not looking to replace Navas or deputy Kiko Casilla.
“Two years ago we had the disaster of the late fax, they [United] sent it two minutes late and that was it,” Perez said in the interview with Marca.
“Last year we had the chance to sign him but we didn’t take it and now we don’t have any agreement with Manchester United to sign him. The truth is we have great goalkeepers.”
The construction magnate, however, did confirm Real had signed defender Theo Hernandez from local rivals Atletico, even though the move has not yet been made official.
“In the days since the Champions League final no-one has offered us anything for any player and everything that has come out in the media is not true, apart from the case of Theo, which was done before,” he added.
