It feels like robbery, specially since we didnt replace with the same quality. We should had got Sneijder/Robben or a young Neymar or something (aka top 10 player in the world or future prospect)... We settled with Ober fking tan
Madrid "robbed" us by paying 80 million for Ronaldo
- Thread starter shamans
- Start date
Sneijder, Robben, Ribery or Aguero is who we needed back then, with a Silva type player to play along with nani. Neymar was too raw back then. Didnt know if he'd go Ronaldinho or Kerlon.
That said, we didnt do to bad after he left at all, and i dont think any of these players would have necessarily been enough to stop barcelone in those finals.
He would have left anyway and for free, exactly the same Summer he left.
That SAF talked him into signing a deal, staying another year and maximising the fee was a stunning piece of business and I have a lot of time for CR7 playing along with that rather than maximising his income.
The 80 pound price was fair, the short sightedness was the lack of add ons based on his success, in essence an antiembarassment plus upside sharing clause. Now teams have learned to tag on plenty of add ons to counter such an eventuality.
he wanted to go
we gotta good price for a player who wanted to fulfil his dream
we gotta good price for a player who wanted to fulfil his dream
And we robbed Sporting by paying 12 million.
How much would Ronaldo 2009 go for now? 200m?
As prices tend to go up each season and because of inflation people have lost the sense of how much money it was at that time but it still remains as the biggest transfer ever. If you adjust the price to inflation all of Zidane, Bale and Ronaldo prices are more or less equivalent.
In today's market I don't know what would be the equivalent for that figure but it would have to be easily above for what was paid for Bale. So as if that was a steal, with hindsight it clearly was very good business or a steal, no doubt about it but at the same time I don't think anyone could have foreseen the career Ronaldo has had to this day. In fact we also payed a lot of money for Kaka, and I used to have more faith in him having an spectacular career for Real Madrid but it didn't went like that at all.
In today's market I don't know what would be the equivalent for that figure but it would have to be easily above for what was paid for Bale. So as if that was a steal, with hindsight it clearly was very good business or a steal, no doubt about it but at the same time I don't think anyone could have foreseen the career Ronaldo has had to this day. In fact we also payed a lot of money for Kaka, and I used to have more faith in him having an spectacular career for Real Madrid but it didn't went like that at all.
The financial deal was insane at the time, in the current market you'd be looking at 200 million.
I've no doubt about it.
I've no doubt about it.
Speaking of robbing, Selling De Gea for £23m plus Morata would be sackable offence.
Very true
If Mbappe is 100, then a Ballon D'or winning prem title winner must be 300
You have a contract, you signed a contract. Sell the player the final year before they can leave on a free, but if you're a club with the money and aspiration to be top, you don't sell unless the player becomes destructive, and if they become destructive, I say bench them and let them leave on a free.
In fairness, what would increasing the amount have done, even if it was a 'steal'?
You're not a club that needs more money, you already have more than enough. And he is an irreplaceable player.
You're not a club that needs more money, you already have more than enough. And he is an irreplaceable player.
I think it was a fair price.
Great player and all that, but he wanted to go and we did well enough without him.
It's not like he single handedly elevated Real to another level. They struggled for a bit, and it took a few more galacticos and solid players before they as a team started looking great.
We don't have anything like that squad atm. Assembling it will take time, but I think we'll get there.
Great player and all that, but he wanted to go and we did well enough without him.
It's not like he single handedly elevated Real to another level. They struggled for a bit, and it took a few more galacticos and solid players before they as a team started looking great.
We don't have anything like that squad atm. Assembling it will take time, but I think we'll get there.
It was still nearly double the transfer record from the start of that summer. £80m at the time was a staggering fee. The only reason people talk about them 'robbing' us is because of the stupid fees that are tossed around on shite these days when you look at how well Ronaldo turned out for them.
£80m today would still be the 3rd highest transfer fee ever and Ronaldo left 8 years ago. Complete hindsight this one. £80m for a player who has been asking to leave two summers in a row couldn't have been turned down.
£80m today would still be the 3rd highest transfer fee ever and Ronaldo left 8 years ago. Complete hindsight this one. £80m for a player who has been asking to leave two summers in a row couldn't have been turned down.
I've always wondered what would have happened if United simply offered him blockbuster wages at the end of the 07/08 season. No, sadly we took the moral high ground and United were praised for "not giving in to player power". Had we torn up his contract, which I think was about 120k a week and offered him 250k - similar to the money we gave Rooney a couple of seasons later... I wonder how things would have turned out differently. Why throw money at Rooney and not Ronaldo? I know who I think would have been worth it.
I know we all know the "I have a dream to play for Real" narrative... and I never bought that story hook line and sinker... in a more simplified way of looking at the transfer Real tripled his wages as soon as he signed for them. I have a dream too... its that my employer triples my wages.
I know we all know the "I have a dream to play for Real" narrative... and I never bought that story hook line and sinker... in a more simplified way of looking at the transfer Real tripled his wages as soon as he signed for them. I have a dream too... its that my employer triples my wages.
If all it would have taken was to pay Ronaldo more to stay, we would have. Don't be silly. He wanted to go.
yeah. he wanted to leave.
no point looking back. At least we had him for the years we did and got the second most successful season we have ever had.
no point looking back. At least we had him for the years we did and got the second most successful season we have ever had.
No doubt if you had to buy him today you would have to add another 100 million at least to the 80 million original spend. I am coming to the conclusion that I am now officially an old fart because I can't get my head around the transfer fees for even mediocre players. Paddy Crerand and his ilk must be wishing they had been born 50 years later
It feels like it was nothing cause we've managed to make a mess of transfer window after transfer window since then. If we had signed Modric, Silva, and Aguero with the money no one would complain. but instead we're in a position where we have whats probably the most overpaid squad in football.
If we weren't under so much pressure financially than we just could've offered him 300k a week and promised him that we'd sign more top players and keep competing at the top level.
We managed to keep a player, who had a very strong desire to go to Madrid, for one more season in which he helped us win a league title and reach the CL final. And at the end of it we got a world record transfer fee for him. That's fair. Let's just be thankful for all the major trophies he helped us win instead of being envious of his time in Madrid. There's nothing to regret here.
No, they didn't, because you pay what the market dictates at the time, and the price Madrid paid was an incredible amount even for that period.
It's really simplistic to look back nearly 10 years on and say "we should have done this!" It's such an odd way to look at life.
It's really simplistic to look back nearly 10 years on and say "we should have done this!" It's such an odd way to look at life.
Thought it was ridiculous to pay that amount of money to us when Madrid did. No one, not even Madrid would've expected Ronaldo to win 3 Ballon D'ors with them and score at the rate he's been scoring. It has turned out to be a bargain, but it's easy to say that now. Spending 80m on a player is not easy.
To be fair we do that all the time on this forum.
Hard to give a price tag to an active player that is already in the GOAT list. 300M would be a decent price taking in consideration his current age but if he was a few years younger it could reach 400M easily.
For example, since he joined Madrid he won 2 La Ligas, 3 Champion Leagues, 3 Ballon D'or (4o now), 2 Best player in Europe, 3 Spanish Cups, 2 Fifa Club World Cups, 2 UEFA Super Cups. Plus the money he generated for Madrid since the transfer was prob 10x more than the price they payed. If in 2009 was like it is now in the current market, even 400M would feel short for his value
Last edited:
What i really cannot figure is the no ad-ons to the sale. We could clearly see he had become the no 1 in the world at such a young age, yet we include nothing for him winning trophies or WPOTY. When we sold RVN, we had a clause of earning £500,000 each time he finished top scorer but not having one for ronaldo does not make sense. Any unrealistic ad-ons even, would have earnt the club some more money today.
Chelsea should have kept Robben as well, but he wanted to go as well. Life's a bitch sometimes
Why are people neglecting the biggest difference maker in that deal here? I am talking about the fact that he gave us no choice. Real knew he wanted out, we knew he wanted out and the player wanted out. We were in no bargaining position whatsoever. In fact, isn't it documented that he only stayed for the 2008/2009 as a "favour" to Fergie? Whichever way we look at it we sold a player who was desperate to leave, getting a world record fee for him was good business everything considered.
As this conversation is taking place 8 years on, one wonders what a 26 year old Eric Cantona in his pomp would have cost in 2000? 1.2m in 1992 wouldn't have been cheap but it's an absolute snip looking back.
It was reported that Real Madrid sold 1.2 Ronaldo shirts in Spain alone in 2010 which equates to £60m in revenue. I think this figure sums up a steal. For a comparison adidas announced revenue of £200m for Pogba shirts 3 weeks after he signed for us...(revenue isn't profit but gives you an idea of money being generated)
I've never heard reports of us offering him silly amounts of money... all the talk in the summer of 08 was of getting him to honour his contract. I'm not sure why we chose to throw money at Rooney a couple of seasons later, but not at Ronaldo when it could have made a difference.
There may be something to that argument, seeing as how his sale pushed us into a profitable position during that fiscal year, and how we never really spent to replace him.
Was a good piece of business by the club, given the player desperately wanted to leave and had been promised the opportunity. Even 10 years on, £80m is a close to world record fee and only perhaps 10 players can command such a fee.
Perhaps we could have included some add-ons, like £5m for each future Balon D'or etc, but £80M in one instalment was unprecedented enough.
Madrid took a risk when signing Ronaldo as upto that point Balon D'or winners like Kaka or Ronaldinho delivered 2 or 3 years of world class influence before rapidly fading.
Perhaps we could have included some add-ons, like £5m for each future Balon D'or etc, but £80M in one instalment was unprecedented enough.
Madrid took a risk when signing Ronaldo as upto that point Balon D'or winners like Kaka or Ronaldinho delivered 2 or 3 years of world class influence before rapidly fading.
I think when using the word 'steal' you have to look at it from Madrid's perspective and not United's, it's too easy to get defensive otherwise. It was an excellent deal for United at the time monetarily and when adjusted for inflation is (I think) still the most lucrative of all time. At the time the fee was insanely high and even now would raise eyebrows (i.e. Pogba, Bale). Point being he was hardly cheap and that's ignoring the astronomical wages he's been on for years. Obviously for Madrid it's been excellent value regardless. The success they've had, in which he's obviously been instrumental, makes him worth every penny.
As for the move itself it didn't seem like there was much we could do to stop him leaving, at least not without going against his will, so I can't really understand some of the negativity in here. In my opinion the individual competition with Messi, amplified by the two being in the same league, has been a hugely important factor in both players reaching the level they have done.
As for the move itself it didn't seem like there was much we could do to stop him leaving, at least not without going against his will, so I can't really understand some of the negativity in here. In my opinion the individual competition with Messi, amplified by the two being in the same league, has been a hugely important factor in both players reaching the level they have done.
They do this every major signing they announce, and it has sort of been debunked. Yeah they sell a lot of shirts but there is a fair bit of cannibalism going on, ie people rush to buy a Ronaldo shirt, they were going to buy a shirt anyways, the only question was whose name were they going to get on it.
£80m at the time was a phenomenal sum and even more so given the player had made it crystal clear he wanted to go. There is always a risk a player see out his contract in this situation so this really is pushing the boundaries in terms of risks a club could and would take.
Yes prices have continued to spiral since then, but Ronaldo was truly unprecedented. Bale is a good example of why this money is such a risk. Yes he is and still could continue to be brilliant, but plenty of brilliant players have been ruined by injuries.
Owen won the Balon d'or and look how few games he got over his career.
The basic principle of many investments is don't spend what you can't afford to lose. These top players are really pushing those boundaries.
Neymar for £150m as is talked now would be a lot like putting down the bank account and the car keys on a solid hand in poker. If you lose you'll get by and still have your home, but it will certainly bite hard and could set you back for a good few years.
Yes prices have continued to spiral since then, but Ronaldo was truly unprecedented. Bale is a good example of why this money is such a risk. Yes he is and still could continue to be brilliant, but plenty of brilliant players have been ruined by injuries.
Owen won the Balon d'or and look how few games he got over his career.
The basic principle of many investments is don't spend what you can't afford to lose. These top players are really pushing those boundaries.
Neymar for £150m as is talked now would be a lot like putting down the bank account and the car keys on a solid hand in poker. If you lose you'll get by and still have your home, but it will certainly bite hard and could set you back for a good few years.
To think that we spent those 80m on the likes of Young and Valencia
Obertan too.
It was a good deal on both sides. The Bale and Pogba fees that eclipsed that fee we got for Ronaldo aren't that much more and we got it in a lump sum and are probably lower when accounting for inflation. We knew he was going to Real Madrid at some point in the very near future and we still got a massive fee with an unprecedented payment structure.