Cristiano Ronaldo has launched his latest tirade towards the Manchester United owners, the Glazer family, while also making a prediction on how long it will take the club to get back to the top.
Ronaldo has conducted an interview with journalist Piers Morgan which is due to be fully released later this week. In the mean time, though, Morgan has been teasing the interview by releasing eye-catching snippets.
So far, Ronaldo has spoken negatively about his manager Erik ten Hag, former interim boss Ralf Rangnick and the club’s facilities.
On Monday night, Morgan revealed what Ronaldo had to say about former team-mates Gary Neville and Wayne Rooney.
On Neville, who has criticised the Portuguese a few times while on Sky Sports, Ronaldo said: “To listen as ex-colleagues or team-mates criticise you, when they only see one point of view. It’s easy.
“It’s easy to criticise, I don’t know if you have a job in television that they must criticise to be more famous. I really don’t understand it.
“It’s hard when you see people who was in the dressing room with you criticising that way.”
Ronaldo also spoke about his surprise at criticism originating from former strike partner Rooney. The five-time Ballon d’Or winner suggested Rooney is jealous about him still playing at the highest level, as well as his looks.
Glazers ‘don’t care about Man Utd’ – Cristiano Ronaldo
Now, Ronaldo has fired shots towards the Glazers. “The owners, the Glazers, they don’t care about the club,” he revealed (via the Daily Express). “I mean, professional sport. As you know, Manchester is a marketing club.
“They’ll get their money from the marketing. The sports… they don’t really care, in my opinion.”
When asked if he’d spoken to Joel Glazer or Avram Glazer, Ronaldo added: “Never. Never. They give all their power to the president and sporting directive.
“The fans should know the truth. They should know that the players want the best for the club.”
The 37-year-old then predicted how long it will take Ten Hag to make Man Utd genuine title contenders again, with them now well behind City, Liverpool and Arsenal.
“I want the best for the club, this is why I came to Manchester United, and I love this club,” he added. “But we have some things in the club which don’t help Manchester [United] reach the top level as City, Liverpool, and even now Arsenal, which makes it complicated and difficult.
Striker issues concerning Man Utd prediction
“In my opinion, it will be hard for Manchester [United] to be at the top of the game in the next two or three years.”
While Ronaldo has gone too far with his criticism of Ten Hag, Neville and Rooney, Man Utd fans will probably back him up in this instance.
The Glazers are the only Premier League shareholders to take dividends out of a club’s profits. They are also responsible for wildly increasing Man Utd’s debts since their ownership began in 2005.
Plus, they have failed to improve the club’s infrastructure, most notably Old Trafford and the Carrington training base. Ronaldo refers to these failures during his interview, stating things like the swimming pool and sauna have not changed since 2009.
All these signs point to the Glazers being some of the worst owners in the Prem. So Man Utd fans will be glad that someone with as big of a following as Ronaldo is speaking out against them.
Meanwhile, a pundit has surprisingly rushed to the defence of Ronaldo and tried to pin some of the blame on Ten Hag.