New City owner confirms C. Ronaldo interest

MANCHESTER UNITED admit they would have to consider an offer of £135million for Cristiano Ronaldo from moneybags neighbours City.

New owner Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim revealed this week he would love to take the Portuguese wing ace across town to Eastlands.

United chief executive David Gill insists they are treating it ‘with a pinch of salt’ and doubts whether the bid will ever materialise.

But if they did firm up the move, he admits it would be up to the Glazer family and manager Alex Ferguson to make the decision.

Gill said: “I can’t believe he is serious at those levels and, anyway, we are not looking to sell our best players.

“But ultimately we would discuss any offer with Alex and the owners, as that sort of money is very large for one person.

“It would take a huge amount of money to take a player like Ronaldo across the city. But that kind of decision would be up to the owners.

“But he mentioned Torres and Fabregas in the same article. I think we can remain calm, wait and see what happens over the course of the next months and years, and not worry about it too much.”

Gill hinted the club was not over impressed with the way Al Fahim has gone about naming the players he would be interested in buying.

He added: “I have never met the gentleman, So I couldn’t say for sure whether he is serious or not. But that is a fantastic amount of money and would turn the industry upside down.

“Still, it is interesting that when Alex mentioned the Dimitar Berbatov signing from Spurs in advance that complaints were made to the Premier League.

“Yet he is publicly listing a host of players he claims to want to buy.”

United almost saw their top summer target Berbatov stolen from under their noses on an eventful transfer window day.

But he is not expecting much more business to be done in January by the champions — apart from trying to strike a permanent deal for Carlos Tevez.

He added: “From a squad perspective, Alex is very comfortable with it.

“The other piece of business we will look to do is to finalise the Carlos Tevez deal.

“But the competition in the squad is now first class.”

Italian giants Juventus have also laughed off reports of a possible City swoop for their keeper Gianluigi Buffon. The Italian national No1, 30, — the most expensive keeper in the world at £32.6m — is another star coveted by City’s owners.

But Juve president Giovanni Cobolli Gigli insists no amount of money would prise Buffon away.

He said: “It’s fantasy football, This summer there was another case of fantasy football, to be precise the story of David Trezeguet to Barcelona.

“That was fantasy football, and this is the same.”