Real Madrid Cannot Be Serious

Earlier in the week I looked at Chelsea’s hasty behaviour in selling Robinho shirts on their website. Whilst Peter Kenyon had said he was very confident of the signing going through, it takes the piss to sell the shirt of a player who hasn’t even signed yet.

Obviously, this didn’t go down too well with Real Madrid. After stating earlier in the summer than the player was free to go, obviously when they assumed Cristiano Ronaldo would sign for them, they’ve changed their minds. Their treatment of Robinho has been pretty poor, but the decision to cling on to him is fairly obvious and forgiveable. They could afford to let him go if they had Ronaldo, but now they can’t. Fair do’s.

However, when I came across a statement on the Real Madrid website earlier today, I couldn’t believe my eyes!

The Cristiano Ronaldo saga over the summer became very tedious. United reiterated their stance of the player not being for sale time and again, yet Real Madrid continued to declare their interest in him. Here is just one example from many:

“He is under contract so the strength and the rights are with Manchester United,” said Gill on the morning of July 20th. “I think we’ve been pretty clear all along that Ronaldo has got a contract until 2012, he’s a valuable member of the team and that’s the situation.”

Yet later that same day, Ramon Calderon was talking to the Spanish press about his desires to bring Ronaldo. Despite being told he wasn’t for sale, Calderon interpreted that as them needing to offer more money.

“This type (of transfer) is hard,” Calderon said. “But we’re going to go for it all the same. I suppose it’s all about a manner of theirs to let us know clearly that they’re not going to lower the price in any way and that if we want him we have to pay a lot more money.”

United’s stance was unwavering. At no point did we even imply there was the smallest chance of us selling Ronaldo. It was clear. He was not for sale. Real Madrid haven’t been so certain in regards to Robinho though.

Following Robinho making his intent on signing for Chelsea clear, a statement on their official website read: “Real Madrid have become aware of the declarations by the player and deeply regret their content. Real Madrid would never want to retain a player against his wishes.”

So, game over, Chelsea are going to sign him, right? Unlike Cristiano Ronaldo, Robinho categorically stated he wanted to leave his club and go elsewhere.

“I want to leave Real and play for Chelsea,” he said. “I am only thinking of Chelsea and want to play there. Since May I have been trying to renew my contract, but they didn’t want to know because they were so sure of signing Cristiano Ronaldo. Now they haven’t signed anyone they don’t want me to go.”

It’s no surprise that Chelsea then chose to continue persevering in pushing through the deal before deadline day. But in arguably the most ironic hypocritical statement of the summer (yes, even worse than Daniel Levy calling us ‘disgraceful’ and ‘arrogant’ for chasing Dimitar Berbatov after they said they didn’t want him to leave, just as Spurs had continued chasing Juande Ramos after Sevilla said they didn’t want him to leave), Real Madrid have had a swipe at Chelsea’s behaviour.

“Real deplore the way Chelsea’s directors have acted despite knowing perfectly well the decision not to sell the player, making statements and even going so far as to sell shirts with the player’s name on through their official website.”

I agree, selling Robinho shirts on the site was a massive faux pas, but Real Madrid are the last club who have any right to criticise others for pursuing a player who apparently wasn’t for sale.

They become more hateful with every passing week.