Celebrity Skin

The Independent suggest that Carlos Queiroz has done a u-turn on Ronaldo:

The former Manchester United assistant manager Carlos Queiroz performed one of the more extraordinary U-turns of recent times when he claimed yesterday that the issue of whether Cristiano Ronaldo left for Real Madrid or not was nothing to do with him. Having departed Old Trafford for the second time, the new coach of the Portugal national team washed his hands of the issue blighting his former employers.

Queiroz replied to a question about Ronaldo's future by saying: "As a national team coach and being attached to the Portuguese football federation, we must not interfere with relations that are professional between our players and clubs. We should not even have an opinion about that."

I was tempted to suggest that this was simply a case of a new hat bringing a new responsibility to be unbiased but, when reminded of what he actually said, it does seem like his new position should only strengthen his view:

This was the same Queiroz who on 27 May accused Real of trying to "naturalise" Ronaldo and invoked historical territorial feuds between Spain and Portugal to demonstrate what he clearly regarded as Real's peculiar brand of arrogance.

Wesley Sneijder makes some comments on the possibility of Ronaldo moving to Real which are reported just about everywhere, here from The Guardian:

Ronaldo is being offered a salary of about £150,000 a week after tax by Real and Sneijder said: "It would be bad for the dressing room if he gets a much higher salary than the rest of the squad. It's not important to me but I know other team-mates would not like that at all. Here we have footballers like him, for example Arjen Robben or Robinho. It's obvious that I want to play with Cristiano but you also have to maintain the equilibrium in the dressing room."

The Telegraph speculate on The Glazer's position on the Ronaldo transfer:

The club's owners, the Glazer family, would have been surprised to read a statement in the Spanish sports newspaper Marca that they had sanctioned the opening of negotiations over Ronaldo's proposed €85million (£68million) transfer to the Bernabeu on the grounds that his value could only decrease.
While it is true that Ronaldo's value will never be higher than it is this summer, a spokesman for the Glazer family described the report as "complete nonsense", adding that at no time had they been contacted by Real Madrid.

While The Mail speculate on which youngsters might leave the club, either on loan or sold:

United youngsters like Campbell, Jonny Evans, Lee Martin, Danny Simpson, Chris Eagles, Darron Gibson, Sam Hewson, Danny Welbeck and Ben Amos are all considered stars of the future.

Ferguson told The Mirror: 'They're all really good players. They've got good potential and some of them will go on loan, some have come back from their loan periods and will now have to push on and show that improvement that's going to get them into the first team squad.'

Read the whole thing for specifics.

A couple of Ronaldo stories to finish with; Perez Hilton analyzes Ronaldo's dress sense, calling it a "Red carpet disaster"; while The Mail have a story on Ronaldo rebuffing the advances of Paris Hilton - what were his PR people thinking about?

The Manchester United striker - currently in LA on an undisclosed business trip - arrived at trendy hotspot Villa in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

A source said: 'Paris was all over him. The moment he arrived, she went over to his private table.

'At one point, she pushed her chest together and made a point of trying to snuggle up against him.

'But Ronaldo clearly wasn't interested in Paris. He turned his back on her.'