United to put Ronaldo on highest pay rung

Manchester United have moved to tie Cristiano Ronaldo to a new long-term contract to prevent any repetition of his summer flirtation with Real Madrid.

Any fresh deal would probably put Ronaldo on the highest rung of the club's pay structure – the £110,000 a week earned by Rio Ferdinand and Henrik Larsson.

The Spanish press has again ignited talk of United's player of the season going to the Bernabeu, a destination it seemed the 21-year-old had set his heart on after the traumas of last summer's World Cup. However, speaking to the Madrid-based paper, Marca, Manchester United assistant manager Carlos Queiroz said they were already discussing a contract with a player he believes is the best in the world, even though his present deal has another 3½ years to run.

"We anticipate things ourselves and that is what we are doing with Cristiano," said Queiroz, who managed Real Madrid in the 2003-04 season. It is natural that the media talk about Cristiano Ronaldo and Real Madrid. He is a great player and Madrid are a great club, but it is just speculation, fantasy." Although his agent Jorge Mendes admitted offering Ronaldo to Barcelona last summer and the player expressed a desire to go to Madrid, it is now clear that staying and renegotiating his pay deal at Old Trafford will be more lucrative than a move to Spain would have been.

David Beckham admitted he took a pay cut to join Real in 2003, where he was offered what was called 'the standard galactico contract' of six million euros a year (£80,000 a week).

Mendes added earlier this month that any attempt to sign Ronaldo would be "practically impossible now because Manchester United would not sell him for all the money in the world".

Queiroz added that Ronaldo's desire to remain at Old Trafford could be seen in the quality of his play. "The football he is playing in Manchester shows he is happy here and he has his head at United," he said.

"He has talent and is the best in the world. He is always the first to arrive for training and the last to go.

''Many times when the session has finished, we shower and eat and when we look back at the pitch, he is still training. He is a player with a divine gift, born to be the best in the world."

Those were once words used about the other Ronaldo, whose departure from Real Madrid now seems imminent.

The vice-president of AC Milan, Adriano Galliani, said he would travel to Spain on Monday to negotiate the transfer although the fee could yet be a sticking point.

Milan would prefer to take Ronaldo — who, like Beckham, has been deemed surplus to requirements by coach Fabio Capello — for nothing. But Madrid will demand a fee for a striker for whom they paid Inter Milan £32 million.

Premiership's high earners
Michael Ballack (Chelsea) £130,000 a week
Andrei Shevchenko (Chelsea) £130,000
Thierry Henry (Arsenal) £120,000
Rio Ferdinand (Man United) £110,000
Michael Owen (Newcastle) £103,000
Steven Gerrard (Liverpool) £100,000
Frank Lampard (Chelsea) £90,000
John Terry (Chelsea) £90,000
Wayne Rooney (Man United) £90,000

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