Former Barcelona president Joan Laporta has revealed that the Catalan club failed with a potential €17million move for Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo when he was 18.
Madrid made Ronaldo the most expensive player in the world when they paid an estimated €94m to Manchester United for his services in 2009.
Ronaldo scored a last-gasp winner for Madrid at Camp Nou last season to end a 39-game unbeaten run for Barca and he will once again be front and centre for Zinedine Zidane s side when they head back to Barcelona on Saturday.
But Laporta Barca s president between 2003 and 2010 has made public a conversation he held with Ronaldo s agent Jorge Mendes about bringing the then-teenager to Catalonia as he led a rebuild of the squad.
When we [Laporta s administration] arrived, we signed Ronaldinho, [Rafael] Marquez and [Ricardo] Quaresma, Laporta is quoted by As.
We were in a process of reconstruction. Cristiano was at Sporting CP and he was close to signing for United.
The player s agent, who was handling Marquez and Quaresma said I ve got another really good player who s called Cristiano Ronaldo.
We told him we knew about him and he offered him to us for two million [Euros] cheaper than to United, who ended up paying 19 million.
