Why Ed Woodward is convinced Manchester United can re-sign Cristiano Ronaldo

Manchester United want to bring Cristiano Ronaldo back to Old Trafford to cash in on his marketability.

The Portuguese superstar, who is lighting up the World Cup in Russia, was sold to Real Madrid for a world-record transfer fee in 2009.

He has gone on to win an unprecedented four Champions League titles in the last five years and raked up the individual honours while out in Spain.

However, there have long been rumblings that Ronaldo isn’t happy in Madrid and sources are indicating he could be ready to leave the European champions.

United executive vice-chairman Woodward has been keen to return the player to Manchester and insists privately that he would never have let Ronaldo leave.

The opportunity to right the wrongs of the past now appears to finally be presenting itself and Woodward has a plan to sell the deal to Red Devils investors.

He believes that the commercial value of Ronaldo outweighs the significant transfer fee that would be required to extract the forward from Real Madrid.

The fee is likely to be in excess of the £89million paid to sign Paul Pogba from Juventus but Woodward is confident investors on the New York Stock exchange will get behind the move.

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Ronaldo’s 74million Twitter followers dwarf United’s own total and he possesses around 50million more Facebook likes than the club’s official account.

Manager Jose Mourinho is keen to bring in four or five new players this summer in an attempt to close the gap on Premier League champions Manchester City.

The fee for Ronaldo would take away potential spending power to pump into these areas but United’s transfer guru will ultimately call the shots.