Anger, disappointment, distrust, disrespect – the relationship between Manchester United and their former favourite Cristiano Ronaldo is worsening every day. In the last move undertaken by the Premier League club, a huge mural of Ronaldo has been peeled off the Old Trafford facade. It’s a petty reaction to the player’s candid interview with journalist Piers Morgan, in which the Portuguese told everything about the club’s problems. United now want to kick CR7 out of the club over his claims that he feels betrayed by his treatment and has no respect for manager Erik ten Hag. And those problems Ronaldo spoke about? They will remain.YOU BETRAYED ME!Just a club fine or a release? Ronaldo waits for his punishmentThe Portugal captain also criticised the club for lacking empathy and understanding of his personal problems. He also accused the club owners, the Glazer family, of not caring about the club.Ronaldo has done everything in his power to alienate himself from the club in an attempt to get away from the club he now considers inferior to the one he’d left for Real Madrid in 2009. And it seems to be working in a perverse way. United are treating Cristiano as an illness, a tumour that needs to be removed from the club. And they’ve chosen a blunt approach that will further hurt the organisation’s reputation.Workmen were seen tearing down the mural of United’s famous No.7s on Wednesday – including Ronaldo, David Beckham, Bryan Robson and Lionesses star Ella Toone – that dominated the front of Old Trafford.##NAJAVA_MECA_6816225##Any meaningful action will follow only when the entirety of Ronaldo’s explosive interview has been published, however. United’s lawyers are waiting to see the second half of the interview on Thursday before deciding if there are grounds to sack Ronaldo for breach of contract.The 37-year-old star may have chosen the warpath and ditched all subtlety on the way. But the facts remain. The club has indeed fallen behind in the race against the biggest clubs in the country and around Europe. They should solve their problems rather than punish Ronaldo, who pointed them out.”I was at Real Madrid for nine years and three at Juventus, and when I arrived, I thought the technology and infrastructures would be different. But I was surprised in a bad way because everything was the same. The progress was zero. Since Sir Alex left, I saw no evolution in the club. Nothing had changed.”
It was one of a number of damning assessments from Ronaldo in the first part of his interview, in which he criticised Wayne Rooney for his criticism, gave his support to former manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, opened up on the heartache of losing his newborn son earlier this year and also called out the mentality of United’s young players, accusing them of ‘not caring’.The rift between Manchester United and the former Ballon d’Or winner is getting deeper by the hour. There is no turning back. The question remains – what will the aftermath look like.