Chinese club makes staggering bid for Cristiano Ronaldo – report

Rob McCarthy

Real Madrid have reportedly been offered a staggering £176million for superstar striker Cristiano Ronaldo.

The bid has come from an unnamed Chinese Super League club, who have bid for the Portugal forward before and are desperate to get their man.

They are ready to offer Ronaldo £105m-a-year – making him the highest paid athlete ever – according to Marca.

That would mean a weekly salary of £2m for the 32-year-old, dwarfing the current reported record figure of £798,000-a-week that is being paid by Hebei China Fortune for Argentina forward Ezequiel Lavezzi.

Ronaldo recently laughed off any potential move away from Real Madrid when quizzed by a reporter for Deportes Cuatro but did then state that “nothing is impossible.”

The Ballon d’Or winner has also been linked with a return to Manchester United and a switch to PSG but Real would almost certainly turn down any offers from European rivals, according to the report in The Sun.

However, it may prove impossible to reject the crazy money being offered from China, particularly for a player entering the final years of his playing career.

The big question for Ronaldo, however, would be just how tested his ego would be by playing in China.

It is well documented that he thrives on his season-by-season tussles with Barcelona’s Lionel Messi to see who is the world’s best player and that comparison would no longer be possible if Ronaldo moved to a far inferior league, no matter what money is on offer.