Interesting tactics from Real Madrid today in regards to the contract situation of Cristiano Ronaldo.
Reports out of Spain, including the teams mouthpiece Marca, claim that Ronaldio has agreed to a new contract that will keep him with the Spanish giants until 2018 and will pay him a salary of €17 million net for each of the next five seasons, which is one million more than Messi gets.
But in a interview in the US, Ronaldo was asked about whether it was true that he had renewed his contract and Ronaldo responded:
The situation still hasn’t been resolved and I don’t think it’s the right time to talk about it. Perhaps we’ll be able to give more concrete news about this further down the line but now all I’m qualified to do is train and work.
So what is going on? Two theories come to mind here. One is that Ronaldo and his agent Jorge Mendes have agreed on the broad strokes to a new deal and that Marca is just jumping the gun on the story.
The second is that Marca are laying the groundwork for Real Madrid to build public support for selling Ronaldo to Man United. They can say that they offered to make Ronaldo the second highest paid player in the world, pay him more than Messi and still he said no. So they had no choice but to sell him.
The first situation is the most likely scenario. But with the impending arrival of Gareth Bale, who plays in Ronaldo’s preferred position, I would not dismiss the second scenario out of hand.
