Napoli president reveals club were offered chance to sign Ronaldo

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Phil Costa·15 July 2018

Napoli President Aurelio De Laurentiis reveals he was offered the chance to sign Cristiano Ronaldo from Real Madrid.

Ronaldo is joining the Partenopei’s Serie A rivals Juventus for a fee of €100m, following nine years and 15 titles at the Santiago Bernabéu.

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However, reports yesterday surfaced that the 33-year-old’s initial preference was to move to the San Paolo, only for those wishes to be rebuffed.

“Ronaldo was offered to Napoli. Mendes, his agent, telephoned me,” De Laurentiis told La Repubblica.

“We planned to make an offer and we would have payed CR7 with a percentage of the funds guaranteed by his arrival.

“The €350m [wages included] that Juventus will invest is beyond our reach. We would have risked pushing the club towards bankruptcy.”

Ronaldo has signed a four-year deal with the Old Lady, reportedly on wages of over €500,000 per week.