Tuesday 22 January 2013

Why Barcelona did not sign Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka – Laporta

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Ronaldo_KakaJoan Laporta, Barcelona’s immediate past president, has revealed that the Catalonian club almost signed Real Madrid forward, Cristiano Ronaldo, when he was playing at Sporting Lison in Portugal.
Ronaldo’s agent, Jorge Mendes, has offered him to Barca in the summer of 2003, but the Blaugrana turned down the chance to sign the Portuguese, after spending heavily on other players.
“Mendes offered us Cristiano Ronaldo when he was still under contract with Sporting. We worked with Jorge quite a lot back then,” Laporta told Onda Cero.
“We could have got Ronaldo for a lower price than Manchester United eventually paid for him. However, we had just signed Ronaldinho, Ricardo Quaresma and Rafael Marquez, and we lacked the financial resources to make another signing.”
Laporta also stated that another Real Madrid player, Kaka, would have been playing at the Camp Nou, if they had struck a deal to take him from AC Milan.
“We had dinner with Silvio Berlusconi and he proposed a player-exchange deal involving Kaka and Ronaldinho. That was not an option for us, though, as Ronaldinho was a key player for us back then,” he said.
“It started out as a bit of a joke, but Berlusconi quickly turned serious. It’s a real shame that Kaka has not really succeeded at Madrid. He was a fantastic player at AC Milan.”
 DailyPost

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