"He did it on purpose" - Manchester United legend says Cristiano Ronaldo's interview was done to ensure an exit from the club and worked perfectly

Former Manchester United defender Jaap Stam has stated that Cristiano Ronaldo's explosive interview with Piers Morgan was purposefully done to facilitate his exit from the club.

The former treble-winning Manchester United defender has claimed that the Portuguese ace knew exactly what he was doing in the interview. He ill-talked about the club, the management and even former player Wayne Rooney.

The Dutchman has insisted that the situation could have been handled in a better way by both parties. Stam told Football Betting:

“He did it on purpose. There was a strategy behind it in terms of ‘how are we going to organise this so that I can leave the club?’ From the beginning to now, you could see where it was going. Not playing, not being in the team, being subbed, not being used, walking away and then saying, from United’s point of view as well, we spoke about it and the discussion about who is right in all these situations."

He added:

"In everything that has been going on, it’s been arranged in how it needs to be to leave the club. The next step was to give an interview and say certain things that is going to blow up and eventually you are going to be leaving."

Stam has claimed that Manchester United should have let the forward depart in the summer itself, which would have averted the situation. He said:

"It’s not a good situation. I always questioned the way of working with him and how it started when he joined the club, how the conversations went with Ronaldo, then the decision making about not using him."

He added:

"And from Ronaldo as well, when he said ‘I want to leave and go somewhere else’, maybe they could have come to an agreement and parted ways at the beginning of the season. Then it kept dragging on and now with this interview, he knew by saying certain things and making comments about the manager and the club and the owners, they needed to let him go.”

Manchester United terminated Ronaldo's contract on November 22.

The Portugal international is currently a free agent and is focusing on helping Portugal win their first-ever FIFA World Cup.

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Former Manchester United forward Cristiano Ronaldo named part of worst team of 2022 FIFA World Cup group stage

Former Manchester United forward Ronaldo has been named as part of the worst team in the 2022 FIFA World Cup group stage by SofaScore.

The Portuguese skipper averaged a rating of just 6.37 on the platform for his performances across three games with the Selecao.

Ronaldo has scored just once in three games, a penalty in Portugal's 3-2 win against Ghana.

The former Manchester United man had a horrible game against South Korea as Portugal lost 2-1. He was inadvertently responsible for the first Korean goal.