Chelsea bid £70m for Raul, claims the Real Madrid captain's agent
Thursday, January 28, 2010 @ 3:06 PM
Raul's agent claims that Chelsea once tried to sign the Real Madrid icon for £70million.
The Premier League side would have made the offer shortly after Roman Abramovich bought the club in 2003, but ended up with Claude Makelele instead of the Spain forward.
Gines Carvajal admits his 32-year-old client could leave the Bernabeu at the end of his contract in 18 months, but had no such thoughts when he was in his prime.
'Many English clubs asked in the past for Raul, but the only formal proposal was the one of Chelsea,' Carvajal told ESPN Soccernet. '(Then Chelsea manager Claudio) Ranieri wanted Makelele and Raul. So the same people of Chelsea who negotiated for Makelele made contact with me and Madrid.
'They offered €100 million (then a world record £70m), but Raul didn't consider the offer because he just didn't think of leaving Madrid.
'I believe that generally clubs know that Raul is the captain of Madrid and, as it happens with players as (Manchester United winger Ryan) Giggs, they know that there are not many options for them to change clubs.'
If accepted the bid would have smashed the €78m world record fee paid by Madrid for Zinedine Zidane two years earlier.
Source: The Daily Mail