Real Madrid and Manchester United finally signed an agreement on the transfer of Christian Ronaldo, a statement on Real Madrid’s website said on June 26 2009.
The deal will take effect on July 1 2009.
On July 6 2009 Ronaldo will be presented to Real’s fans at the club stadium Santiago Bernabeu where he will play for the next six years.
The price of the transfer was announced to be a record transfer sum of 80 million pounds sterling (93.88 million euro). Manchester United bought Ronaldo in 2003 from Sporting Lisbon for 12.2 million pounds sterling.
According to the BBC, Ronaldo would earn about 11 million pounds (12.9 million euro) a year at Real, which would make him the highest paid footballer in the world. He was on about 6.38 million pounds sterling (7.49 million euro) at Manchester United.
At Real, Ronaldo will join Brazil playmaker Kaka who signed with Real several weeks earlier for the then-world-record 56 million pounds sterling (65.7 million euro) ending his stay with Italian AC Milan.
Both players, by many considered the two best players in the world, are part of an ambitious project of newly elected Real Madrid president Florentino Perez. Perez has so far spent a total of 148 million pounds sterling on new players, including Raul Albiol who came from Valencia for the sum of 12 million pounds sterling (14 million euro).
Allegedly Perez was in negotiations with several clubs to buy a number of European football stars, including Liverpool's Xabi Alonso, Valencia's David Villa and Bayern Munich's Franck Ribery, the BBC said.