Ronaldo becomes property tycoon

Manchester United star and World football player of the year Cristiano Ronaldo has added another string to his bow - property investor...

Whilst Manchester United battles to keep hold of him after it emerged Real Madrid are set to make a £50 million bid for the Portugal international, Ronaldo is busy buying up property.

With a pay packet most of us could only dream of - he is United's highest paid player, raking in £120,000 a week - Ronaldo has already snapped up four homes, including a villa and a flat in Lisbon.

He also owns a house in Madeira which his mum lives in and a £4 million mansion in Cheshire where he lives during football season and is planning to build another £6 million home in Portugal.

He has ambitions to follow in the footsteps of fellow football star, Robbie Fowler, who was at one stage the wealthiest sportsman in Britain, thanks to his passion for and success in property investing.

Ronaldo's latest purchase is a £8 million luxury hotel on the Portuguese island of Porto Santo near his native Madeira -meaning that his property portfolio is expanding at such a rate that he has earned the nickname ‘Ronopoly'.

A Manchester United insider said, "If he carries on like this he'll have more properties than a Monopoly board.

"It's all very well buying cars and gadgets but a property portfolio could yield huge returns in the future.

"A few years ago he was a teenager living in digs. Now he has the world at his feet."

He is clearly taking his newfound passion for property investing seriously- he has already claimed the trademark ‘CR7' for use on merchandise and his agent Jorge Mendes has registered the new motif with the National Institute of Industrial Property in Lisbon.

A hotel seems a sensible long term investment in the current market and, with tourism one of the world's biggest industries and the added extra of having a celebrity owner, Ronaldo's hotel looks set to be fully booked.

It also means he can get up to whatever multi-millionaire footballers get up to in their own time in the privacy of his own hotel...