I refused to sign Ronaldo: Houllier

(GSM) – Gérard Houllier says he turned down the chance to sign Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo when the former was Liverpool manager in 2003.

Houllier, who returns to Anfield to face Liverpool as Aston Villa manager on Monday night, said the young Ronaldo’s wage demands and having Harry Kewell in his squad were the reasons behind snubbing the chance to sign the Portuguese winger.

Ronaldo, then with Sporting Lisbon, instead moved to Manchester United and has been a huge success at Old Trafford before moving to Real Madrid for a world record fee of £80m.

“I saw him (Ronaldo) in the Toulon U21 tournament and we went for him, but we had a wage scale and we weren’t paying the sort of salary he wanted,” Houllier is quoted as saying in the Daily Telegraph.

“Then Manchester United played a friendly against Sporting Lisbon and all their boys said to Sir Alex Ferguson, ‘You have to sign him’. But I agreed with not breaking the wage structure. I thought it would cause problems in our dressing room.

“I know some of the signings were not as sharp as they could have been. Maybe we would have won the title with Ronaldo, but we had Harry Kewell, who was outstanding at the time and was very hungry but got a bad injury. After that, he never had the same confidence, the same appetite.”