Man United forced Real Madrid to pay £80m up front for Ronaldo in 2009 deal

The Portuguese superstar had joined Manchester United in the summer of 2003 as a fresh-faced teenager whom few had heard of, but left with a very different reputation.

In six years at Old Trafford, Ronaldo helped the club to five Premier League titles, two League Cups, an FA Cup, a Champions League and a Club World Cup.

On a personal note, he scored 118 goals and offered 59 assists while also winning the first of his five Ballon d'Or awards while with them.

Gill, who was the Red Devils' chief executive for ten years, knew that the club had someone special in Ronaldo and revealed how the club worked with the star's agent, Jorge Mendes, to receive a then world-record fee of £80m when the time came for him to move on.

Speaking on Rio Ferdinand's VIBE with Five, Gill said: "We'd never really heard of him because we played against Sporting and he took everyone by storm in that friendly and we went and got him.

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"That first game against Bolton [in August 2003] with the dreadlocks and the teeth - you could see it there from the off and speaking to his agent Jorge Mendes, who has looked after him for so many years, he was so, so motivated to be one of the best and be up there and he was very well managed.

"For us to have him was brilliant. What he did in the first season - got us to a cup final [FA Cup] and we met Jorge Mendes and gave him another contract.

"Jorge was a very good agent for him, I felt. He managed him correctly and we always probably felt that he would move to Madrid at some stage, but we tried to push out for as long as possible.

"But his whole attitude and what he did for the club was phenomenal."

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Asked how the Real Madrid move came about, Gill said: "I remember in Moscow after the Champions League final [in 2008] getting questions outside of the hotel because there were a lot of rumours around Ronaldo.

"Carlos [Queiroz], obviously being with Portugal, thought he would go at some point and it was a bit of a shock when he was indicating that he'd quite like to go that summer, so we said, 'we can't have that'.

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"In a nutshell, we agreed that he would sign a new contract with us but there would be an exit clause for the following year if they hit a number - £80million up front, in our bank account, which was a record at the time and that was that.

"They had a certain period at the end of the next season where they could exercise that option and after we lost to Barcelona [in the 2009 Champions League final]. I spoke to Jorge and Ronaldo's legal advisers and it was clear they were going to exercise it.

"He was a brilliant player and we didn't want to lose him but you've got to understand that if we didn't do something like that he would have been upset and it would have been difficult, but no one can argue with what he did on the pitch during that last season."