UPDATE -  UEFA Communications Director William Galliard, the special advisor to UEFA President Michel Platini has publicly gone on record regarding FIFA President Sepp Blatter’s use of the “Modern Day Slavery” description when referring to players and their contracts.

“It would be useful to remind people that slaves in all of the slavery systems never earned a wage,” Gaillard told the media.  “It seems that both clubs and players are trying to negotiate an exit before the player is free.”

Well said sir, well said.

It would seem as though FIFA President Sepp Blatter has enough things to worry about before throwing his hat into the Cristiano Ronaldo saga.

With all the talk of Ronaldo heading to Real Madrid in a record breaking transfer, Blatter used Real Madrid’s open courting of Ronaldo as a platform for his belief that a want-away player should be allowed to leave the club he’s signed to, if he desires.

But “modern day slavery?” Come on Sepp.

As Blatter told SkyNews, “The important thing is, we should also protect the player,” the FIFA President said.“If the player wants to play somewhere else, then a solution should be found because if he stays in a club where he does not feel comfortable to play then it’s not good for the player and for the club.

“I’m always in favour of protecting the player and if the player, he wants to leave, let him leave.”

It just never stops with this guy.

What ever happened to honoring contracts that players signed of their own free will, especially when they’re making 120k Pound a week already?

Cristiano Ronaldo’s recovery timetable is now set at a minimum of 12 weeks after undergoing ankle surgery in Amsterdam last week.

The Footballer of the Year has had quite an interesting last couple of months with winning the Premiership Title, Champions League, 2008 Euro’s and the ongoing Real Madrid saga (which for the record he’s said the is no agreement with the La Liga Champions).

If you think about the amount of games Ronaldo has played since last summer (not just for club, but for country as well), it’s surprising that his body hasn’t broken down earlier. Yeah, he took his sweet time getting back to Manchester United about setting a date (three weeks after Portugal’s 3-2 loss to Germany) for his surgery, but the kid deserved to relax with family, friends and his woman after all the self-inflicted drama he put himself through when he decided not to acknowledge the Real Madrid link.

I still don’t agree though with the “Modern day slavery” description that he and Sepp Blatter are playing, especially after Blatter was against the idea of the Andy Webster ruling.

image via Images

Cristiano Ronaldo might be missing the start of the season after undergoing successful ankle surgery in Amsterdam.

“Initial indications are that the procedure was successful,” United said on its website.

“Cristiano will begin his convalescence under the direction of club medical staff and an estimation of his return to full fitness will be possible following a review by the specialist in one month.”

I had been hearing little nuggets of rumors about this one the last few days, but now it sounds like it actually might be happening. According to Premiership Latest,  Chelsea have launched a bid to bring Fernando Torres to Stamford Bridge and are willing to apy £85million, or roughly $170 million! WTF! $140 million for Cristian, $170 million for Torres…are you serious? The services of one player can’t possibly be worth that. Just the fact that numberes like this are being tossed around blows my mind. I seriously question how the sport can sustain itself when money like thi sis being tossed around.

(more…)

With so much speculation surrounding Ronaldo and whether or not Manchester United will sell him or not, reports are now saying that Real Madrid have gone directly to the Glazer family and that the Glazers are interested in selling. With so much money on the table, a reported $140 million price tag for Ronaldo, it would actually be difficult not to sell him. As I have said before, I think it is a slippery slope when money like this is involved, but as owners of a team, you can’t blame them if they do consider selling. It is also reported that Real Madrid has debts over $600 million, so you can bet they are going to try and get the price down.

Where do you think CRon7 will be playing this upcoming season?

Looks like CRon7 has put off that surgey a little longer as he and his girl Nereida Gallardo have been hanging out in Sardinia. With the new season less than two months away, it might be a good idea to have that surgery sooner rather than later.

Check out more pics of Nereida after the jump

[Pics vis Hollywood Tuna]

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While everyone was under the impression that Cristiano Ronaldo was going to have surgery for the foot problem that he spoke about following Portugal’s Euro exit, it seems that it will have to wait just a little bit longer.

Yeah, I guess I can see why he’d want to wait and hang out in Italy with WAG Nereida Gallardo.

images via DailyMail

UPDATE -  Seems like everyone has an angle for the up to date round up of all the stories surrounding the Cristiano Ronaldo and his Manchester United status.

Things just keep getting better for Cristiano Ronaldo (38 goals in all competitions so far this season) as reports are suggesting that Manchester United is preparing to offer him a new, improved contract taking him into the 9.3 Million Euro per season range.

Ronaldo had just recently re-upped his latest deal a few months ago, but this new deal would bump him up 4.7 Million Euro per year more. It’s thought that the new deal (150k+ Euro’s per week) is including Image Rights, something similar to what was believed to be in David Beckham’s contracts.

An interesting thing that caught my eye was in the “Clause” part of this reported new contract. Ronaldo’s alleged buyout price for clubs to come in to purchase in a cool 127 Million Euro, but more interesting is the NEW clause written in respect to the introduction of the Webster Ruling.

According to Article 17 of Fifa’s transfer regulations (Andy Webster), players who sign contracts when aged under 28 are able to unilaterally break those contracts after just three years and to prevent Ronaldo from doing this, Manchester United has included language stipulating that he would have to pay a very big, yet un-named sum personally to buy out the remaining time on the contract.

I bet we see many more of these NEW clauses with young players as clubs are starting to protect themselves from losing out on their investments and protecting themselves from clubs that are possibly looking to poach young players from clubs rather than paying Millions of Euros.

Example—

Imagine if Chelsea hadn’t have had to pay the 34.4 Million Euro for Michael Essien that they paid to Ligue 1 Olympique Lyon in August of 2005. All Essien would have had to do with the new Webster Ruling would have been to notify Lyon that he was leaving and exercising his right under Article 17 after three years under contract and then buy out the remaining contract terms with his own money.

If that had happened, I would imagine that Chelsea would gladly repay the player the money he paid to buy out his contract in a “signing bonus” (something he was going to get anyways and just added to the top) and then sign him to even better improved weekly wages, which would make sense because at the end of the day Chelsea would be saving tens of Millions of Euros and could focus that money on purchasing other players.

See what kind of door this Webster Ruling has opened?

TRIPLE UPDATE -  FIFA has officially confirmed that they will not punish Real Madrid over Manchester United’s complaint of “tapping up” Cristiano Ronaldo.

“From the documentation received, no breach of contract appears to have occurred yet,” FIFA said in a statement.

“Therefore, in accordance with the applicable practice, no kind of formal procedure has been opened by FIFA regarding this matter.”

DOUBLE UPDATE - Poor Cristiano..

Not only has he been photographed with Real Madrid Fitness Coach Walter Di Salvo in Rome, but it doesn’t look good for his current club Manchester United’s desire to have FIFA punish Real Madrid for unsettling the Portuguese winger.

With the announcement of Scolari going to Chelsea in the middle of the 2008 Euros, you’ve got to think there will be more news coming out of the Portugal camp as the tournament progresses.

UPDATE - Now it’s looking like Ramom Calderon will fight this charge to the death after insisting that Manchester United have no evidence that Real Madrid have acted inappropriately in their pursuit of Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo.

Doesn’t it always seem like Madrid’s “unsettling” a player through their “admiration” of players?

It’s starting…. But it looks like Manchester United isn’t going to lose Cristiano Ronaldo without a fight.

Today United filed an official complaint with FIFA over Real Madrid’s public courting of the Portuguese winger, but kept it’s contents private.

You’ve got to think with Ronaldo’s refusal to publicly display his loyalty to Sir Alex and Man Utd that his intentions (don’t forget about Nereida Gallardo) are to become the latest Galactico.

My question is if Cristiano is allowed to make this move to Madrid, will he get his image rights in the deal? You know that Madrid will make their money back in jersey sales and marketing alone, but how much are they willing to drop up front?

If Ronaldo does declare his intentions to head to Spain, then you’d think that maybe it’d be worth the sale in terms of the amount of money you’d have coming in, but where do you spend it?

I’d go for Benzema, Ribery and Henry just to name a few.

Ronaldo and Portugal take on Czech Republic on Wednesday in their 2nd match of Group A.

As I was watching Portugal’s 2-nil win over Turkey this morning, all I could focus on was Cristiano Ronaldo’s unbelievable foot speed and his ability to keep the ball under extreme amounts of defensive pressure.

This video pretty much shows the amount of hard work he put in before and after training sessions, and how it has led to crazy amounts of technical skill and ability (with both feet).