Joan Laporta has not denied reports that Barcelona weregiven the opportunity to capture Cristiano Ronaldo, who reportedly wants to leave his current team, Manchester United. It’s no secret that the Portuguesewants out of Old Trafford so he can participate in the UEFA Champions League next season.
Recent media coverage of Ronaldo’s uncertain future has highlighted the fact that the 37-year-old still has plenty of useful years of play ahead of him.Bayern,Chelsea, and Atletico Madrid have all been mentioned as possible destinations for him lately, but they have all denied any interest.
Meanwhile, one of the surprisingly mentioneddestinations had beenhis former side Real Madrid’s arch-rival,Barcelona because of the fact thatthey could provide him withUCL action.In an interview with CBS Sports, the Blaugrana president JoanLaporta appeared to indicate that the superstarhad been offered to themby his agent, Jorge Mendes.
Whan Joan Laporta said of Cristiano Ronaldo’s possible move to Barcelona
“Well, this type of story is all within the process of the summer window. There always appears a lot of news.Ronaldo is a very good professional and he’s still so fit.
“He’s a player who is very ambitious and competitive and I am sure he has a lot of options. He’s still a player ofManchester United, an extraordinary club that I respect very much. His future is not my business. It’s the business of Manchester United and Cristiano.”
“We have a very good relationship with Jorge Mendes. I have known him for a long time. He is one of the best player agents. He knows how to do his job and I respect him. But in the end, the truth is we wanted Lewandowski.In this case, we decided to go for Lewandowski and knew he was crucial to our success.
“So we went to Bayern instead. This is the reality. The other [Ronaldo] topic is just part of the ‘little history’ of football. It’s a very nice story, but you will always hear lots of contradictory news about it. We got Lewandowski. He was our main target and I prefer not to comment further“, Laporta toldCBS Sports.