Selling Ronaldo an historic error, claims former Real president

FORMER Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon believes the club has made an “historic error” by selling Cristiano Ronaldo to Juventus.

Ronaldo (below) was officially unveiled in Turin on Monday after completing a £99.5million transfer from Real, bringing to an end a spectacular nine-year spell at Santiago Bernabeu which yielded 451 goals in 438 appearances and eight major trophies, including four Champions League titles.

Calderon was the president who brought Ronaldo to Madrid from Manchester United for £80m in the summer of 2009, and in an interview with Spanish newspaper AS he insisted that his successor Florentino Perez has made a huge mistake in allowing the fivetime Ballon d’Or winner to leave.

“It’s very sad that they have sold a player like Cristiano Ronaldo, it’s a real pity,” he said. “With what it cost me to sign him, the effort that we made to bring him to Madrid... Manchester did not want to sell him and it was very difficult.

“And now they have sold him for €100m. There isn’t a player who scored 60 goals a year for you and is worth to you €100m.

“Selling Cristiano is not good news, either for €100m or a billion. It is true that we put a clause of a billion euros to discourage those interested in him in the future, but at the same time, to show that there was no other player like him. It’s an historic error.”