Here are a couple of questions to test your sporting knowledge: 1. What is the current market price of loyalty? 2. What is the current value of a footballer’s contract?

If your answer to both questions is either nil, zero, zilch, nada or nothing, then you’re ready for a spot on the local pub quiz team.

Cristiano Ronaldo has once again highlighted the disdain and utter disregard that big-name footballers hold on both issues. Loyalty has been thrown out of the window - along with last week’s engraved Nikes - and the young Portuguese wonderkid proves for the umpteenth time that a contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

'His young head has been turned by talk of him truly hitting the heights with Real Madrid. But how much higher does the lad want to go?'


It doesn’t seem two minutes since Ronaldo was burying his tear-stained face in the mud-caked turf of the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow in prone esctasy at Manchester United winning the Champions League. This, mind you, only 10 days after collecting his second successive Premier League champions’ medal.

Throw in an FA Cup winners’ medal as well and that’s not such a bad haul in four years, during which he has gradually morphed from a cross between a prancing pony and diving diva to a thoroughbred classic star on the world stage.

Funnily enough, Sir Alex Ferguson and the coaching team at Old Trafford might just have had a little something to do with that embryonic development. Not that you’d notice when Ronaldo is cornered on the subject of loyalty.

His young head has been turned by talk of him truly hitting the heights with Real Madrid. But how much higher does the lad want to go? Does he really believe that Real Madrid are a better club right now than Manchester United? Does he think that the £200,000 a week on offer by the Spanish champions is going to make a life-changing difference to the £150,000 offer on the table at Old Trafford?

He certainly isn’t going to improve his ability by changing clubs. Isn’t he with the champions of Europe already? Does he think life will be any sweeter at the Bernabeu where they haven’t won the Champions League in the last six years and can boast winning the last two La Liga titles only because of the paucity of Barcelona and Valencia?

No, the reason has to be money. And I guess the £6m-a-year contract being openly discussed would tempt any 23-year-old. And of course that would not take into account all his sponsorship deals and - according to his agent - the one apparent sticking point to his continued life at United, and that is Ronaldo’s commercial value to the club.

You may recall a similar situation when David Beckham went to Real from United and was able to negotiate a massive deal that gave him a huge chunk out of the souvenir shop till linked to the sale of Beckham shirts and other paraphernalia on sale.

And what about Ronaldo’s contract with United? It was only last year that he was given a sizeable pay rise for his signature on a new four-year deal. Does that count for nothing?

Ferguson is right to take the Madeira magician to task over his commitment to the club that has groomed him from day one, but it is hardly likely that Fergie will hold the club’s finest player to his contract and go through with his threat to make him sit in the stands for the next four years. That’s a no-win situation for all parties.

But it does raise the question of just how waterproof are the present-day player contracts. If they can be shredded so simply, why all the fuss about negotiating them in the first place? Why don’t clubs settle for rolling 12-month agreements for all their players? Sounds about as successful as the Child Support Agency!

So the big question is: will the quick step-over king realise the folly of a move at this stage of his career and take in all the advice from his mum and his OT mates to stay put? When mum flew in for the Euro 2008 championships a few days ago she told reporters that her son would be staying at United. Whoops! Did she let the cat out of the bag?

What must really be hurting the Old Trafford management team are the not-so-subtle suggestions that United are fast becoming a feeder club for Real Madrid – Beckham, Ruud van Nistelrooy and now, possibly, Ronaldo.

It’s time for Fergie to draw the line. It’s also time for Ronaldo to show that there’s more to his game than glitz and glamour. In other words, it’s payback time.