Progression of the British football transfer fee record in 2001 was £38m. On 1 September 2008, Manchester City agreed a reported £32,500,000 fee for Robinho, which remained the record amount paid by a British club until 31 January 2011, when Liverpool paid £35,000,000 for Andy Carroll from Newcastle United, which was also a new record amount paid for a British player. A few hours later, the record amount paid by a British club was broken again when Chelsea paid £50,000,000 for Fernando Torres from Liverpool. On 11 June 2009, Manchester United announced that they had accepted an £80,000,000 bid from Real Madrid for Cristiano Ronaldo. The transfer was
Transfer of Cristiano Ronaldo from Real Madrid C.F. to Juventus F.C. idea of obtaining Ronaldo came from sporting director Fabio Paratici, as per Pavel Nedvěd. Pérez would comment on the situation on 21 September, stating: "Nobody [was willing to] give more than €100 million. He wanted to go and the most [we could obtain would] be that amount. We have not had many more offers." Moreover, Manchester United manager José Mourinho argued at a press conference in early September that Ronaldo was "never on [his] table to say 'yes' or 'no'" to, while Massimiliano Mirabelli and Marco Fassone, Milan's former director of football and former managing director respectively, admitted in November