Former Liverpool boss Gerard Houllier has revealed he was blocked from signing Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo.
Houllier, who was the manager at Anfield between 1998 and 2004, revealed that he scouted teenage Ronaldo in 2003 when he was with Sporting CP.
This was prior to Ronaldo coming to the attention of Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
He said: "I saw him in the Toulon Under-21 tournament and we went for him, but we had a wage scale and we weren't paying the sort of salary he wanted.
"Then Manchester United played a friendly against Sporting Lisbon and all their boys said to Sir Alex Ferguson, 'You have to sign him'.
"But I agreed with not breaking the wage structure. I thought it would cause problems in our dressing room."
He added: "Maybe we would have won the title with Ronaldo, but we had Harry Kewell, who was outstanding at the time and was very hungry but got a bad injury.
"After that, he never had the same confidence, the same appetite."