Manchester
United believe an Old Trafford return for Cristiano Ronaldo next summer
will prove almost impossible, it emerged on Friday.
United supporters are praying their former hero comes back from Real Madrid to end his career with them next summer.
However senior Old Trafford sources told Sportsmail that
they believe the cost of bringing the World Player of the Year back to
the club will in all likelihood prove prohibitive for a player who will
be halfway towards his 31st birthday by the start of next season.
It
emerged last week that Ronaldo’s representatives were asking for
£20million a year in wages when the Portuguese star was touted around in
the summer of 2013. Add a transfer fee of about £60m to that and the
cost of the deal becomes clear.
A United source said today: 'Ronaldo will always be loved here.
'But if you look at the numbers and his age than you have to ask if it really could be made to work.
'We are not at all sure it can.'
United
believe that their best chance of buying Ronaldo back was actually last
summer when he made it clear to them that he was unhappy with life at
Real.
Club
insiders believe that had former manager Sir Alex Ferguson been in
charge then the deal may well have happened. A new United team would
then have been built around him.
As
it was, David Moyes was in the first stages of his own short reign at
that point and ultimately United believe they were led on by the Ronaldo
camp as he tried to engineer a new contract at the Bernabeu.
Ironically,
it is that deal – eventually signed last September – that now makes it
so difficult to bring Ronaldo back to the club where he first came to
the world’s attention.
With
Ronaldo contracted now until 2018, Real president Florentino Perez
holds all the cards in terms of dictating a fee for the club’s prize
asset.