and will also give the club’s full support to his candidacy for the Balon D’Or prize awarded at the end of the year.
The reaction addresses the two main reasons behind Ronaldo’s current unhappiness — the failure of the club to extend his current deal and a perceived lack of institutional support towards him in his battle to beat the likes of Leo Messi and Andres Iniesta to football’s top individual prizes.
There had also been leaks from the player’s camp that he had grown unhappy because he is not universally loved.
Yet while he is said to be peeved that his name is not greeted with thunderous acclaim pre-game at the Bernabeu — and has even been jeered by a voluble minority — it does not square with claims that his unrest is because he has no social life as he cannot get respite from adoring fans.
Ronaldo had been portrayed as a lonely figure whose daily routine of driving across Madrid, from his home at the exclusive La Finca in Pozuelo de Alarcón to the club’s Valdebebas training complex, was only occasionally broken by an ill-fated attempt at enjoying life in the city.
Insiders told newspaper El Mundo that Ronaldo had taken Russian girlfriend Irina Shayk to the theatre to see The Lion King, entering wearing sunglasses when the lights had been dimmed, only to leave before the interval because he had been swamped by fans demanding photos and autographs despite his requests to be left in peace.
Uncertain future: Ronaldo refused to celebrate his two goals against Granada
It also reported that constant pestering in public prevents him going to his favourite restaurant and he now has food delivered to his home.
His unhappiness was also said to extend to the Real dressing room, where he was once part of a band of Portuguese-speaking players. He has fallen out with Brazil full-back Marcelo who, allegedly, said Iker Casillas would be a worthy Balon D’Or winner. And while Ronaldo’s Portugal team-mate, Pepe, made a point of congratulating his Madrid clubmates in the Spain team after their European Championship semi-final win, the former Manchester United hero did not.
Ronaldo feels his relationship with many of the Madrid fans is not what it should be. After scoring 150 goals in his first 150 games for the club (151, according to Ronaldo, after a referee awarded a deflected effort to Pepe) one might expect unwavering adulation. But while the £80m attacker’s name is still sung by his former United supporters at Old Trafford, at the Bernabeu there is no special treatment.
The cheers when his name is announced before kick-off are no louder than for any other player … and usually less than those for his manager, Jose Mourinho. There have even been isolated incidents of whistling from a disgruntled minority.
Not just that, in Madrid he is constantly reminded that he earns around £21,800 a day — 1.5 times what the average Spaniard (if he is not one of the five million unemployed) gets in a year.
‘If he wants a pay rise he should at least ask less publicly,’ has been the common sentiment.
Ronaldo’s next home game comes in nine days’ time against Manchester City in the Champions League, and the Real Madrid hierarchy will be listening for the reaction to the player from the stands.
The first thing Real president Florentino Perez did when Ronaldo told him he was unhappy, in a meeting he had requested last Saturday, was to make sure there were no imminent bids for their superstar in the dying days of the transfer window.
However, the ears of City, Chelsea, PSG, FC Anzhi and even United will have pricked up, and the potential suitors will have been encouraged by tales of the player’s tormented goldfish-bowl existence and Real’s struggle to pay him what he wants.
Yet things might not have come to a head had Real managed to free themselves of Kakà in the summer. They are obliged to pay him £7.2m net a year but, relieved of that expense, they may have been able to go a long way to meeting Ronaldo’s demands before things got public.
Another problem for Real is the abolition of the so-called ‘Beckham Law’, under which they agreed to pay Ronaldo £8m a year net, with the club meeting his 24 per cent tax obligation. Ronaldo’s current contract still benefits from the ‘Beckham Law’. But any new contract would, from 2015, be subject to a 52 per cent tax.
Paying Ronaldo his £8m a year has been costing the club just under £10m a season. Now, by giving in to his 30 per cent pay increase demands, his new £10.35m take home pay would see them shelling out more than £20m a season.
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