When Manchester City were bought by Sheik Mansour of Abu Dhabi back in 2008, the new owners immediately made a very bold claim.
‘Cristiano Ronaldo has said he wants to play for the biggest club in the world, so we will see in January if he is serious,’ said Dr Sulaiman Al-Fahim, who was briefly given free rein to pronounce on such matters.
It was nonsense. Al-Fahim was a big mouth — soon dispensed with — who also claimed City would try to buy Thierry Henry, David Villa, Fernando Torres and even the ‘other’ Ronaldo, at that stage recovering from a serious knee injury at AC Milan.