FOOTBALL: Manchester United face a €11.5m bill if they sell Cristiano Ronaldo in January

Man­ches­ter Unit­ed could face a bill of around €11.5m if they let Cris­tiano Ronal­do go in January.

Ronal­do missed yes­ter­day’s Chelsea match amid alle­ga­tions that he refused to sit on the bench against Spurs last week in what was arguably his last game for the club.

But if Unit­ed want to evict him before his con­tract expires at the end of the sea­son, they’ll have to pay close to eight figures.

Ronal­do’s base salary until June is around €10 mil­lion, not tak­ing into account league stand­ings or tro­phy bonuses.

But Unit­ed have some room to make ends meet, includ­ing the option to end his con­tract if he refus­es to come on as a sub­sti­tute and is deemed to be in breach of contract.

There is also the pos­si­bil­i­ty of allow­ing him to sign a low-cost con­tract with anoth­er club or even a free deal, which was firm­ly declined last summer.

Old Traf­ford’s gold wrestler insist­ed that Ronal­do, who wants to play in the Cham­pi­ons League, could only leave on their terms a max­i­mum salary of €23m.

Now, how­ev­er, his com­pen­sa­tion has been sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced, mak­ing it pos­si­ble for him to leave with­out doing anything.

If Ronal­do, who turns 38 in Feb­ru­ary, decides Amer­i­ca is his next des­ti­na­tion, it’s almost certain.

Inter Mia­mi, where David Beck­ham belongs, are inter­est­ed in sign­ing, but although I am con­fi­dent that I will clear my per­son­al con­di­tions, the trans­fer fee is like­ly to be a bottleneck.

How­ev­er, it is clear that Ronal­do has end­ed his life at Old Traf­ford, and there are grow­ing spec­u­la­tions that his deal will go through.

The Sun­day World reports that Chelsea also want to seize the oppor­tu­ni­ty and join the race for a vet­er­an player.

As Sun­Sport revealed over the sum­mer, Blues own­er Boley is a huge Ronal­do fan.

At the time, man­ag­er Thomas Tuchel still need­ed con­vinc­ing to make the move, but Graeme Pot­ter is now in com­mand at Stam­ford Bridge.

A bid of €16m was rumored at the time, but the Old Traf­ford boss­es will do every­thing in their pow­er to keep him away.