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Cristiano Ronaldo has been one of the defining footballers of the 21st century, but his career trajectory might have looked somewhat different had he accepted an offer to move to Birmingham City in 2003.
Love him or hate him, he’s one of the defining professional footballers of this century. But the career path of Cristiano Ronaldo might have looked very different had he accepted a move to Birmingham City in 2003.
At this remove, it all seems highly doubtful that this could ever have been a possibility, but a little over two decades ago it certainly was a real possibility, one which might have changed not only the course of Ronaldo’s career, but also the history of the Blues, had it come to pass.
The history of professional football is littered with ‘what ifs’. How different might the 1980s have been for Sheffield United, for example, had they signed a promising youngster by the name of Diego Armando Maradona when they spotted him on a scouting trip to South America in 1978?
The possibility of Cristiano Ronaldo signing for Birmingham raises a similar level of intrigue.
“There was a deal to be done” – David Sullivan claimed that Cristiano Ronaldo was offered to Birmingham City
Speaking to Sky Sports’ Soccer AM in December 2014, the former Birmingham City owner David Sullivan lifted a lid on an attempt to sign this player from Sporting Clube de Portugal.
By the summer of 2003, the Lisbon club were ready to cash in on the 18-year-old prodigy. And such was their keenness to sell the player that Sullivan claimed to have been offered him for £6 million.
The deal, however, never came to pass. Sullivan claimed that Birmingham were ready to do business, but that Ronaldo himself turned down the opportunity to move to St. Andrew’s and instead signed for Manchester United for a reported £12 million in August 2003, double the fee for which he’d been offered to the Blues.
“There was a deal to be done”, Sullivan told Soccer AM, “When he first went to United there were lots of doubts about him. He wasn’t the star that he is now.”
Cristiano Ronaldo’s career might have looked very different, had he signed for Birmingham City in 2003
Although clearly a highly-talented young player, there was none of the over-excitement concerning Cristiano Ronaldo in the summer of 2003 that has existed for much of his career since.
He’d been put into the first team at Sporting in August 2002, but despite the fact that meetings were held with both Liverpool and Arsenal regarding signing him, his figures for that season weren’t especially impressive, with five goals in 31 appearances in all competitions, as his team finished in 3rd place in the Portuguese Primeira Liga.
But after Ronaldo rejected the opportunity to move to St. Andrew’s, Manchester United acted quickly. Impressed by what they saw in the inauguration match between United and Sporting to mark the opening of the new Estádio José Alvalade ahead of Euro 2004 on August 6, they completed the signing just six days later, paying twice the amount that Sullivan later claimed Birmingham had been offered him for.
Birmingham’s loss was Manchester United’s gain, and in more than one sense.
Ronaldo would go on to score 118 goals for them in 292 appearances in all competitions over the next six years before United sold him on to Real Madrid in June 2009 for a world record transfer fee of £80 million.
He would go on to win the Champions League five times, the Premier League three times, La Liga twice and Serie A (with Juventus) twice, and would captain the Portugal national team to the Euro 2016 title.
But however unlikely this may all sound now, in 2003 the possibility of him going to Birmingham at that time wasn’t quite as unrealistic as it may sound today.
Blues had been promoted back to the Premier League for their first top-flight season since 1985-86 in 2002, and had just finished their first season back in 13th place.
Indeed, even without him, they finished the 2003-04 season in 10th place in the Premier League, which was at the time their joint-highest final league position since 1959.
We can only imagine how different he might have turned out as a player had he swapped the green and white hoops of Sporting for the blue of Birmingham City in 2003.
Had he spent his next six years playing under the management of the then-Birmingham manager Steve Bruce rather than Alex Ferguson, he might well have turned out a very different player indeed.
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