Cristiano Ronaldo has revealed that he left Real Madrid during the summer as he no longer felt valued at the club.
Ronaldo joined Madrid from Manchester United in the summer of 2009, scoring a remarkable 450 goals in 438 appearances for the Spanish giants before moving to Juventus ahead of the 2018-19 campaign.
The 33-year-old's exit came as a surprise to many, but Ronaldo has said that he was no longer valued by Madrid president Florentino Perez, and he simply believed that his time at the Bernabeu had come to an end.
Ronaldo has also insisted that he did not leave Madrid for more money, claiming that he could have earned "five times as much" had he moved to China rather than Juventus.
"[Perez] only ever looked at me as a business relationship. I know it. What he told me never came from the heart," Ronaldo told France Football.
"I felt it inside the club, especially from the president, that they no longer considered me the same way that they did in the start. In the first four or five years there, I had the feeling of being 'Cristiano Ronaldo'. Less afterwards.
"The president looked at me through eyes that didn't want to say the same thing, as if I was no longer indispensable to them, if you know what I mean. That's what made me think about leaving. Sometimes I'd look at the news, where they were saying I was asking to leave. There was a bit of that, but the truth is that I always had the impression that the president would not hold me back.
"If it had all been about money, I'd have moved to China, where I would have earned five times as much than [at Juventus] or at Real. I did not come to Juve for the money. I earned the same in Madrid, if not more. The difference is that, at Juve, they really wanted me. They told me that and made it clear. They showed me that."
Ronaldo has scored seven times in 10 Serie A appearances for Juventus this term.
Matt Law
