Napoli Prez. questions the wisdom of Juventus signing Ronaldo

Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis has questioned the wisdom of Juventus after the Serie A giants spent £100million to bring Cristiano Ronaldo to Turin.

The Portuguese superstar made the move this summer after spending nine years spell with Real Madrid, during which he scored 451 goals and won four Champions League titles.

But despite Ronaldo’s pedigree, De Laurentiis has suggested the move was more of a marketing mechanism than down to purely footballing reasons.

Juventus have made a nice marketing move for the whole FCA group,’ he said. ‘It’s good for fans and sponsors so congratulations, but there is some distance from that to winning the League or the Champions League.

‘Ronaldo has a certain age and spending so much on just one player, paying him the contract they are, could be counterproductive.’

The 33-year-old signed a four-year deal worth £500,000-a-week at Juventus as he swapped the Santiago Bernabeu for the Allianz Stadium.

De Laurentiis also took aim at new Chelsea coach Maurizio Sarri’s manners, showing the wounds of losing his former manager to the Blues this summer have yet to heal.

Asked about Chelsea coach Sarri, De Laurentiis was quoted as telling La Gazzetta dello Sport: ‘The relationship is broken. It was broken when he told me: “I don’t know if I can do any better with this team”.

‘He had entered into that phase where a coach thinks about himself or perhaps he was looking for a golden pay-out here.

‘I asked him what he wanted to do this season, but I got no answer. It was rude.’