Cristiano Ronaldo Blames Florentino Perez for Pushing Him Out of Real Madrid This Summer

Cristiano Ronaldo has claimed that Real Madrid president Florentino Perez only ever saw him as a business asset, and says that their deteriorating relationship was one of his main reasons for leaving.

Perez brought Ronaldo to Madrid in 2009 and he spent nine hugely successful years at the Santiago Bernabeu, become Real's all-time top goalscorer and winning the Champions League four times.

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However, Ronaldo revealed in an interview with France Football that he felt Perez only ever valued him for his profitability, saying: "He only ever looked at me as a business relationship. I know it. What he told me never came from the heart."

Real Madrid claimed that Ronaldo's €99m transfer to Juventus in July was instigated 'at the will and the request of the player', but Ronaldo says Perez's attitude played a part too.

"I felt it inside the club, especially from the president, that they no longer considered me the same way that they did in the start," he said. "In the first four or five years there, I had the feeling of being ‘Cristiano Ronaldo’. Less afterwards. 

"The president looked at me through eyes that didn’t want to say the same thing, as if I was no longer indispensable to them, if you know what I mean. That’s what made me think about leaving. 

"If it had all been about money, I’d have moved to China, where I would have earned five times as much than here [at Juventus] or at Real. I did not come to Juve for the money. I earned the same in Madrid, if not more. The difference is that, at Juve, they really wanted me. They told me that and made it clear. They showed me that."

Ronaldo has settled in well, scoring seven goals in his first ten Serie A appearances.