The Portugal international is to be paid a basic
weekly salary of €403,000 after signing a five-
year contract on Sunday, making him the best
paid player in the history of football
SPECIAL REPORT
By Duncan Castles
Cristiano Ronaldo's new Real Madrid contract
makes him not only the best paid footballer on
the planet, but also the best paid individual in
the history of the sport.
Under the terms of the five-year deal
announced by the Liga club yesterday, the
Portugal international is to be paid a basic
salary of €21 million net. Ronaldo will earn
performance bonuses and substantial image
right payments on top.
The figures, which precisely double the then-
unprecedented wage Ronaldo agreed upon
joining Madrid in 2009, equate to a weekly
basic of €403,000, underlining the scale of the
forward's sporting and commercial prowess.
Ronaldo's improved salary nets at €1m a year
more than the after-tax sum Samuel Eto'o was
paid at Anzhi Makhachkala before the Russian
club's billionaire owner dispensed with the
African's services last month.
Payable for five seasons, the total value of
Ronaldo's contract also far exceeds that of
Eto'o's former three-year contract. A number
of elements contributed to Jorge Mendes'
success in negotiating such a deal.
First, the player's agent had calculated that
Ronaldo would be able to achieve a signing-on
fee of between €50m and €70m had he elected
to run down the final two seasons of his
existing contract and leave the Santiago
Bernabeu as a free agent.
Having assessed the 28-year-old's potential
commercial value to the club, Manchester
United were positioned alongside Manchester
City, Paris Saint-Germain and Monaco as
potential future employers.
Second, Florentino Perez did not want to risk
the political fallout of allowing an individual
who has scored 203 goals in 203 Madrid
appearances for Madrid to leave the club
during a summer in which the Madrid
president had seen Neymar join Barcelona
despite budgeting €100m to recruit the young
Brazilian.
And Perez knew the sheer financial value of
Ronaldo to an organisation that has just
announced record revenues of €520.9m for
2012-13.
With 21.3 million followers on Twitter and
60.4m Facebook fans, Madrid's most famous
player, Ronaldo's social media reach exceeds
that of his employer by more than 60 percent.
Madrid are said to have sold over a million
Ronaldo replica shirts in his first year there
alone.
Madrid have, however, attempted to underplay
the value of their principal asset's new
contract, leaking a reduced figure to the local
press.
The tactic echoes their handling of Gareth
Bale's global-record transfer from Tottenham,
a €100m transaction that Madrid sought to
have reported as €91m.
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