Liverpool Turned Down Cristiano Ronaldo

Former Liverpool boss Gerard Houllier has revealed that he wanted to sign Cristiano Ronaldo from Sporting Lisbon but the clubs board refused to meet his wage demands. The Frenchman said "I saw him in the Toulon Under-21 tournament and we went for him, but we had a wage scale and we weren’t paying the sort of salary he wanted,". Then Manchester United played a friendly against Sporting Lisbon and all their boys said to Sir Alex Ferguson, 'You have to sign him'. But I agreed with not breaking the wage structure. I thought it would cause problems in our dressing room. I know some of the signings were not as sharp as they could have been. Maybe we would have won the title with Ronaldo, but we had Harry Kewell, who was outstanding at the time and was very hungry but got a bad injury. After that, he never had the same confidence, the same appetite."

This must be the biggest mistake by an English club since Gerry Francis declined to sign Zinedine Zidane for Spurs, claiming the three time world player of the year was "too wooden".