Manchester United set to profit from Cristiano Ronaldo’s transfer to Juve

It's happening, isn't it? It really is happening...

After nine years, four Ballon d'Ors, four European cups and God-knows-how-many shirtless goal celebrations, Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro looks poised to leave Real Madrid. The Portugal captain is said to be on the cusp of a move to Juventus, who will reportedly splash out £88m - £8m more than the then-world record fee Manchester United received for him in 2009 - to take him to Turin. Although the fee is some way short of the money Paris Saint-Germain spent bringing in Neymar from Barcelona a year ago, it's still an enormous amount for a 33-year-old - even if he remains one of the top players on the face of the planet. Although a move to Juve is likely to kill off any faint hopes that Ronaldo may one day complete a fairytale return to Old Trafford, United are at least poised to make a bit of money out of it. United didn't insert a sell-on clause in the deal which took Ronaldo to Spain. However, as pointed out by The Mirror, because they signed him as an 18-year-old they qualify for training compensation under FIFA’s Solidarity Mechanism rule. The report points to the Regulations on the Status of Transfer and Players handbook, page 25, article 21. This states: 'If a professional is transferred before the expiry of his contract, any club that has contributed to his education and training shall receive a proportion of the compensation paid to his former club (solidarity contribution).' A more exact breakdown of the pricing of this particular rule follows in Annexe 5 of the same document (page 70). To spare us all the headache of working it out, the report summarises it by saying that United are owed 0.5 per cent of the overall fee for every season he was at the club. Assuming the fee is £88m, this works out at £440,000 a season. With Ronaldo at United for six seasons, they would receive £2,640,000 from the deal. Sporting Lisbon, the club from which Ronaldo joined United, would also receive around £1,320,000.