Inter boss says Ronaldo is not for sale, unless you have 100m

MASSIMO MORATTI, the owner of Inter Milan, has no intention of selling Ronaldo to Real Madrid and said he would not believe the Brazilian wanted to leave until he heard it from him face-to-face.

“I haven’t spoken to him recently. But I know from experience that whenever he is in Brazil confusion is created,” Moratti said.

“I’m accustomed to not believing what’s reported. I believe only what I see and hear with my own ears. That’s why, above all, I’m waiting to speak to Ronaldo one-to-one.”

Ronaldo’s agent told Real Madrid last week that the World Cup winner was ready to leave Inter, although Real’s sporting director Jorge Valdano said the club were only relatively interested in the player.

Moratti, who spent 27.9 million to acquire Ronaldo from Barcelona in 1997, said he could not imagine Inter without the 25-year-old and would do everything to keep him.

“Inter have no intention of giving in on this.

“He is not for sale. We have only fixed a base price, below which we would not go, and that begins at 100 million,” he said.

Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has already broken the transfer record twice in his first two years in charge to buy Luis Figo for $56 million from Barcelona and Zinedine Zidane for 66 million from Juventus. Forking out close to 100 million for Ronaldo is not a possibility.

“Some time ago, when some figures were put on the table, we were so far away we couldn’t even get to 50 percent,” Real sporting director Valdano said on Friday, when the Ronaldo rumours first surfaced.

Moratti said he expected to see Ronaldo possibly as early as Monday, when the player returned to start preparing for the new season.

“I think he’s going to arrive Monday. But even if it’s Tuesday or Wednesday, that’s no problem.

“I just want to see him face-to-face.”

Elsewhere in Italy, businessman Diego Della Valle, creator of international shoe brand Tod’s, has been named as the new owner of the soccer club created out of the remains of Fiorentina.

Fiorentina, a club with 76 years of history including two Italian titles, collapsed last week after months of financial difficulties and with reported debts of 22 million.

In its place, Florence city council announced last Thursday the creation of Fiorentina 1926 Florentina, with city mayor Leonardo Domenici as its first president, and revealed on Saturday that Della Valle is the financial muscle behind it.

Della Valle, 49, a prominent Tuscan businessman, is the creator of the Tod’s, Hogan and Fay shoe brands and runs a business empire estimated to be worth 250 million.

“He (Della Valle) is a businessman with huge interests in Tuscany. He is determined to get the team back into top echelons of Italian soccer within a few years,” the city’s sports director Eugenio Giani said on website www.fiorentinanews.com.

Fiorentina, who were playing in the Champion’s League just three seasons ago, were relegated from Serie A at the end of last season and refused entry into Serie B for next season because of the financial problems.

The city did not say how much Della Valle planned to put into the club, but said a part of the club’s shareholding was likely to be offered to the general public.

“We want to avoid a situation like before when (former owner) Vittorio Cecchi Gori held 99 percent of the shares,” Giani said.