Monday, December 15, 2008

Why Rafa Benitez Won't Be Joining Real Madrid

Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon has effectively ruled out any move for Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez following the appointment of former Tottenham boss Juande Ramos on an initial six-month contract.

Madrid-born Benitez is reportedly on the brink of signing a new four-year contract with Liverpool which is worth an estimated £16million to the Spaniard.

It will keep Benitez at the club until 2013 and Real, one of the clubs linked with an interest in the Reds boss, put an end to further speculation about his future when Calderon insisted they would prefer to keep Ramos.

Ramos has replaced Bernd Schuster until the end of the season and Calderon, speaking on BBC Radio Five Live’s Sportsweek programme, said: “We want to see what happens with Ramos and at the end of the season, if everything is okay, and I hope so as he is a good coach, we will see what happens in May or June.

“We had to take this decision very quickly. I had a meeting with Bernd Schuster and he was very disappointed and not excited about keeping his job, so we got in touch with two or three coaches who could come and one of those was Ramos. That is why we did it so quickly.

“Benitez is a very good coach and he was with us as everyone knows. He was training the youth team at Real Madrid. But he is the coach of Liverpool and I am sure he is going to be there for a long time and so he is not an alternative for us.

“We know him very well, he is Spanish and worked with Real Madrid a long time ago. He is a very good coach but I would like to have Juande for longer than six months. So let’s hope everything is going to be okay and if it is like that, he will continue with us.

“Ramos won the Carling Cup with Spurs and the UEFA Cup two years in a row with Sevilla. In England, with the problem of the language and different habits, maybe it affected him. But we trust him very much.”

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