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Would Ronaldo really leave Real Madrid?

Cristiano Ronaldo appeared to be upset with Real Madrid's transfer business in the summer © Getty Images

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Planes, it seems, are a great way to express opinions. Tomorrow afternoon, as Real Madrid host Villarreal, a little turbo-prop will take to the skies above the Santiago Bernabeu, trailing a banner behind it. "Come home Ronaldo," it will read. It has been paid for by a group of Manchester United fans, at a cost of more than £1,800.

The hope, of course, is that it will have the same impact as the last plane chartered by a handful of the club's supporters. There was roughly a month between a banner demanding "Moyes Out" being flown over Old Trafford last season and the Scot losing his job. The chances that the protest had any influence on the decision are, well, none, but still, precedent here would suggest that hiring a plane probably can't hurt.

This time, though, there is something ineffably sad about the whole episode. For a start, it encapsulates one of the ugliest aspects of football in the 21st century: this is a plane hired not to celebrate a title win or garland a hero or even - as in the case of the Moyes incident - to request the dismissal of a man who seemed to be doing considerable damage to a beloved club. It is to express a desire for money to be spent, for a transfer to happen. It showcases, yet again, how the signing of elite players has become not just a means to an end but an end in itself, how emerging from the transfer market with a gem now seems to be as important as a trophy.

There is something more significant at play, too, something even uglier. United Reel, the group who have hired the plane, have done so on the back of 10 days in which the rumour that Cristiano Ronaldo might be on the verge of returning to Old Trafford has gained no little momentum and no little credence. They have decided to spend £1,800 of their own money on the back of a week and a half of whispers, of cryptic statements, of theatrical winks.

It started last week. Well, it actually all started a bit earlier than that, when Ronaldo appeared to criticise Real president Florentino Perez's decision to sell Angel Di Maria and Xabi Alonso this summer, but it picked up last week. "If it was up to me," the Portuguese had said, "I wouldn't have sold them, but if the president thinks the best thing for the team is to sign some players and let others leave, we must respect and support the decision."

In the cold light of day, it is not exactly a withering critique. It reads, actually, rather more like a man picking a fine line between expressing an opinion, supporting his friends, but remaining diplomatic toward his employer. It is probably worth pointing out here, too, that Di Maria was replaced by James Rodriguez, who is, like Ronaldo, a client of Jorge Mendes.

Anyway, when Ramon Calderon - Perez's predecessor at Real and the man who actually signed Ronaldo - was asked about the 29-year-old's remarks last week, he responded by saying that his "impression" was that the Portuguese "was fed up with the policy of the president."

He cited as proof not just the sales of Di Maria and Alonso but those of Gonzalo Higuain and Mesut Ozil last summer, too, neither of which met with the approval of Ronaldo. It is worth noting here that Calderon and Perez are mortal enemies and that the former spends as much time as he can taking pot-shots at the latter.

Money talks

Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates scoring for Real Madrid © Getty Images

• £140m might buy Manchester United five years of Cristiano Ronaldo's services, but what else could they spend that amount of cash on?
  
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Stage three came when Louis van Gaal, the Manchester United manager, was asked about Calderon's comments about Ronaldo's comments at his weekly press briefing before his side's visit to Leicester City. He responded fairly sensibly. He said it was "always a discussion in the media" but that the press "shall not buy Ronaldo". He admitted a deal was "possible" but that he didn't think "Real Madrid shall sell him".

There is something very endearing about Van Gaal's avowal to use "shall" instead of "will." It makes him sound a bit like William Wordsworth, except in a tracksuit.

Then - after a brief pause to allow United's remarkable defeat at Leicester to sink in - as a fairly dull Capital One Cup week ground on, the story resurfaced, this time with estimates of how much it would cost to bring the Portuguese back.

Journalists do not conjure figures from the air; they were drawn from figures given to a number of Europe's biggest clubs during the course of Ronaldo's last contract negotiations. United would have to commit somewhere between £140-200m, in transfer fees and wages, to see him in a red shirt once more.

That estimate appeared on the back page of every single national newspaper in Britain on Friday morning. Again, no matter what people like to think, journalists do not just invent these things. If they are writing it, there is a very good chance that someone - either at United, or connected to Ronaldo - is giving them the information they require.

It is at this point that a group of Manchester United fans have decided which way the wind is blowing, that Ronaldo is weighing up whether to come home, and that perhaps seeing their love for him emblazoned on the sky would touch him so deeply, so personally, that he would phone Ed Woodward there and then. Bring me back, he would say, to where I always wanted to be. And this is what is sad about the whole affair. The last 10 days have been a game in which everybody wins, with one fairly significant exception.

By sowing the seed of dissatisfaction initially, Mendes gets to remind Perez who holds the cards at Real Madrid. Mendes, of course, is probably a mite miffed with Perez that he did not follow through on his hints that he would sign Falcao this summer.

The Colombian, instead, went to United; Mendes has good relations at Old Trafford, too, and by feeding the flames, has reminded Perez that there is a club capable of buying his most prized asset. Mendes wins, and Calderon wins, too, however briefly.

Louis van Gaal said a move for Ronaldo was "possible" © Getty Images

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That, in all likelihood, will translate at some point into a new contract for Ronaldo; it certainly did a year ago, the last time Mendes and his crew started dropping hints about how unhappy the Portuguese was after the arrival of Gareth Bale. So he wins, and Madrid win, because they get to keep possibly the finest player on the planet for another few years. And Perez wins, because whenever a new contract is signed, he gets to boast about how he kept Ronaldo once more. United win, too, even if they do not sign Ronaldo, because it is a reminder of their financial power and their continuing allure to the best players in the world.

It is also a fairly potent message to other potential signings: not just that they could bring Ronaldo in, but that they had him in the first place. Look what we did for him; maybe we could do the same for you.

And, of course, the media wins, in Spain and in England and all over the world, because anything to do with Ronaldo and United means clicks and hits and sales and listeners. Again, this story is not a media invention - not at all - and it is a journalist's duty to report what a manager, a player or an executive says; that it helps shifts a few units, though, is always immensely welcome.

That just leaves the losers: the fans. Not just the fans who have hired a plane to fly over Madrid, but all supporters. Not just supporters of Manchester United, but supporters of all clubs, because this is a process that you are unwitting, unwilling participants in all of the time, too.

Whether the player is Ronaldo or Klaas-Jan Huntelaar or Higuain or Edinson Cavani or John Terry or whoever, the hopes and aspirations of countless supporters are toyed with every summer and every January by agents and clubs and middlemen and executives with an agenda.

They are leveraging your dreams for your team to try and get a new contract, or to win a battle for control, or to prove a point, or to move to another side. It is probably harmless; to some, it is probably even quite enjoyable, though there is a marked difference between what you like and what is good for you. It feels, though, quite dirty, quite unpleasant. There is something about it all, as the same tricks are replayed time and again and the same hopes are raised and the same ambitions dashed, that is just quite sad.

Cristiano Ronaldo was unhappy about the sale of Angel Di Maria to Manchester United © Getty Images

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A Spanish speaker, Rory is a well-respected football writer for The Times and has previously worked for the Daily Telegraph and The Independent.

This article originally appeared on ESPNFC.com

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