Cristiano Ronaldo revealed that a shift in his relationship with Florentino Perez convinced him to leave Real Madrid for Juventus.

The club claimed the transfer had been instigated “at the will and the request of the player.”

“I felt it inside the club, especially from the president, that they no longer considered me the same way that they did in the start,” he said. “In the first four or five years there, I had the feeling of being ‘Cristiano Ronaldo’. Less afterwards. The president looked at me through eyes that didn’t want to say the same thing, as if I was no longer indispensable to them, if you know what I mean.

“That’s what made me think about leaving. Sometimes I’d look at the news, where they were saying I was asking to leave. There was a bit of that, but the truth is that I always had the impression that the president would not hold me back. If it had all been about money, I’d have moved to China, where I would have earned five times as much than here [at Juventus] or at Real. I did not come to Juve for the money. I earned the same in Madrid, if not more. The difference is that, at Juve, they really wanted me. They told me that and made it clear. They showed me that.”

He added: “The truth is that the president wanted me but, at the same time, he made it known to me that my departure would not constitute a problem.”

Ronaldo said Zinedine Zidane's departure was not a factor.

“My decision to leave was not based on his departure. That being the case, it’s one of those little things that made me feel a bit better in terms of what I thought of the situation at the club.”