OpinionChinese whispers: Ronaldo fires up old rumours after Scolari chat; LVG says he turned down €25m offer from a CSL club while Sven will never say never
Is there any substance to the latest round of Ronaldo rumours?
Ronaldo has been linked to China before with his agent Jorge Mendes quoted as saying a CSL club offered Real Madrid £250 million (US$354.2 million, HK$2.8 billion) for him back in 2016, but on Tuesday the transfer talk got a new lease of life after former Guangzhou Evergrande coach Luis Felipe Scolari spoke to Portuguese radio at the country’s football awards as reported first on Goal.
Big Phil – who added three CSL titles, an AFC Champions League and plenty of zeroes to his bank balance in South China – said that Ronaldo always asked him about China, adding that it would make sense for the Portuguese captain to consider it because of his wider business interests.
Ronaldo is contracted to Real Madrid until 2021 but if the persistent rumours that they want to sign Neymar are true then Ronaldo’s star status and wages will be a problem. Offloading their current number seven would free up some funds.
Ronaldo could perhaps do with the cash himself as AS reports that the Spanish taxman wants a lot more than he has offered.
To take some of the wind out of the story, Spanish transfer tattler Don Balon ran a piece where it claimed that the 33-year-old rang teammate James Rodriguez, who is on loan at Bayern Munich, to tell him that an unnamed Chinese club had put an offer on the table.