"I, like many people around the world, was staggered by the description of 'slavery' being used to describe the tug of war between Real Madrid and Manchester United over Cristiano Ronaldo. And the person who said it was no less that FIFA head Sepp Blatter. What is he talking about?! Manchester United want Ronaldo to honour his contract with them while the player has said he wants to go to Real. Blatter said that if United forced Ronaldo to honour his contract it was 'slavery'. How stupid can you get but then again this is not the first time Blatter has put his foot in his mouth. To call a player who earns $240,000 a week a 'slave' is utterly ridiculous. And of course that $240,000 is just the start of it. Ronaldo has also massive sponsorship contracts so his total income is absolutely huge. To equate that to slavery is nonsense.

What we earned back in my day is absolutely nothing compared to what the players of today earn. And then just think about those magnificent players who came before us ¿ players like Sir Stanley Matthews and Brazil's genius Garrincha who died in poverty after helping Brazil win two World Cups. Some of the huge amounts of money these players today are earning should be used to help the players of old ¿ players who have nothing now but who helped the players of today to get where they are. Blatter should be getting a pension fund for those old players instead of making these idiotic comments.

Blatter really should keep his nose of out some things and I for one always wonder how certain people can get into the top positions in football even though they don't know much about the game.

It's like me going down to the Premier's office and saying I want to be Attorney General even though I have never studied law. Only in football can you get people in high positions with no qualifications. It wouldn't happen in any other profession.

As for Ronaldo staying at United, it will be sorted out in the end. I don't know why he wants to leave ¿ United have just won the Champions League and also the Premiership.

I always say a player should honour his contract but having said that if Ronaldo does want to leave I don't think it makes any sense for United to keep him. Just take the cash and run. You really do not want a player who is unhappy and wants out.

Of course if he does leave he may find out that life at Real is not all that it is cracked up to be. Who knows?

But let's just leave out the word 'slavery'.

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WEST HAM

I have been looking forward to watching my boys West Ham take on the Major League Soccer's All-Star team which was to be played last night in Toronto. While West Ham are no doubt enjoying their pre-season tour of North America, the MLS All-Stars lead by David Beckham always want to win these exhibition games.

In fact over the past few years they have come away the victors.

They beat Mexico's Guadalajara 3-1 in 2003 and defeated Premier side Fulham 4-1 in 2005. In 2006 they beat Chelsea 1-0 and last summer beat Celtic 2-0.

Obviously they are in the middle of their season and are really up to show how they can perform and fair play to them.

Beckham will no doubt be looking forward to playing against an English team ¿ in fact he was raised near West Ham's stadium in East London.

I understand that there was a bit of crowd trouble when West Ham beat the Columbus Crew recently on their tour. Hopefully that will not happen in Toronto. It seems some of the more troublesome boys came over with the Hammers for their tour.

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ON THE MOVE

Claude Makelele has left Chelsea for Paris-Saint Germain and he will be a big loss. However the Frenchman is 35 years old and obviously wants to finish his career back at home and Paris-Saint Germain is a good club with a very nice stadium. He will be hard to replace ¿ in fact his position just in front of the defence has been called the 'Makelele' ¿ break up the play and pass it on. Not many did it better than Makelele ¿ a few maybe. People like Silva from Brazil and Senna from Spain who had a fantastic World Cup.