Transfer Centre

Ramon Calderon: 'Florentino Perez did not want Cristiano Ronaldo'

By Subhankar Mondal, Reporter | 22 March 2013

Ramon Calderon claims that Florentino Perez did not want to sign Cristiano Ronaldo and even tried to "stop" the transfer from going through.

Former Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon has claimed that Florentino Perez did not want to sign Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United in the summer of 2009.

Calderon says that his successor at the Spanish club even wanted to "stop" the Portugal international from arriving at the Santiago Bernabeu.

"Florentino Perez wanted to stop the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo," he 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. 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."

Calderon was the Madrid president from July 2006 until January 2009.