Ronaldo Renews Contract With Real Madrid

Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo has
renewed his contract with the club, which
had been due to expire in 2015, the
Spanish giants confirmed on Sunday.
The Portuguese international will attend a
ceremony at 1:45 pm (1145 GMT) with
Real president Florentino Perez at Real
Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu stadium to
mark the renewal of his deal, the club said
on its website.
The 28-year-old’s record since joining
Madrid from Manchester United for a then
world record 94 million euros back in
2009 has been phenomenal with the
Portuguese scoring 203 times in 203
appearances.
Real Madrid did not give details of the
contract extention, but Spanish
newspaper El Pais reported that the deal
will run until 2018 and make Ronaldo the
best paid player in the world.
“The salary of the player will be close to
20 million euros, making him the best
paid footballer in the world,” it said.
Four-time World Player of the Year Lionel
Messi was the previous highest paid
player in Spain with a salary of 16 million
euros a season.
The deal ends a series of drawn out
negotiations that began back at the end of
the 2011-12 season.
Speculation then mounted that the
Portuguese would leave the Spanish
capital after he said he was “sad” in
September last year and was believed to
be upset at the lack of support offered to
him by the club in his quest to reclaim the
Balon d’Or, which Messi has won for the
past four years.
However, any chance that Ronaldo could
make a sensational return to Manchester
United or indeed to big-spending French
duo Paris Saint-Germain or Monaco now
seems a long shot with the player set to
under contract until he is 33.
Despite the speculation, Perez was always
confident that the player would renew his
contract and end his career at Real.
“Ronaldo wants to retire at Real Madrid,
and we want him to retire here, just like
[Zinedine] Zidane and so many other
great players did,” Perez said in July
when asked about the reports that
Ronaldo was planning to leave the
Spanish side.
Since then Perez has splashed over 90
million euros once more on Gareth Bale.
The Welshman’s transfer from Tottenham
was finally sealed at the start of
September and he made his debut for the
club alongside Ronaldo on Saturday, with
both men scoring in the 2-2 draw at
Villareal.
Bale is just the latest in a string of
“galactico” signings, Real president Perez
has made during two spells in charge of
the club, in a drive to boost their
commercial revenue and success on the
pitch.
Auditors Deloitte’s latest Money League
report showed that Real had become the
first football club to generate more than
500 million euros a year, whilst Forbes
ranked them as the most valuable sports
team in the world last month with an
estimated value of $3.3 billion.