Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane broke off his holiday to call Cristiano Ronaldo in a bid to persuade his unsettled star not to quit the club, Spanish sports daily Marca claimed Sunday. Ronaldo, on Confederations Cup duty in Russia with Portugal, is reportedly furious over a tax probe into the off shore accounts dealing with his image rights, and has reportedly vowed to leave Spain. "I am leaving Real Madrid," Marca claim Ronaldo told his Portuguese colleagues. "I have made a decision. There is no turning back," the daily sports paper reported. According to Marca when Zidane heard Ronaldo had sworn to quit he broke off from his family holiday and called his No. 7 to tell him Madrid "needed him for his goals, and also his winning mentality". Marca also reported that club captain Sergio Ramos had called Ronaldo to ask him to stay. In just 265 games for Real Madrid Ronaldo has scored 285 goals, winning three Champions League finals in four seasons. The 32-year-old Ronaldo is the latest football superstar to come under scrutiny for tax evasion after Lionel Messi was handed a 2.1-million-euro ($2.3 million) fine last year for avoiding paying taxes on part of the income he earned from image rights via companies in Belize, Britain, Switzerland and Uruguay. Ronaldo is accused of defrauding the authorities of 14.7 million euros in tax through offshore companies. Perez to tackle Ronaldo Florentino Pérez's first task after being reelected unopposed as Real Madrid president Monday will be to appease superstar Cristiano Ronaldo amid speculation the four-time world player of the year wants to leave. "As no other candidature was put forward to the board ... it is proclaimed that Mr Florentino Pérez Rodríguez is president of Real Madrid," the Spanish and European champions said in a statement. The 70-year-old construction magnate's third term in charge of Europe's most successful club spanning 15 years — 2000-2006 and since 2009 — will be rubber stamped at a ceremony at the Santiago-Bernabéu Stadium later Monday. Portuguese sports daily A Bola also claimed that Perez had already been informed of the 32-year-old's decision. There has been speculation that Ronaldo is trying to put pressure on Real so that it will bear some of the burden of an eventual fine as Barcelona did for Lionel Messi. Among the clubs reported to be interested in Ronaldo is former club Manchester United for a fee which could hit 200 million euros, with a possible get-out clause of one billion euros. Modric probed Croatian prosecutors said Monday they were opening an investigation into whether Real Madrid's Luka Modric gave false testimony at the trial of Dinamo Zagreb's powerful former boss, Zdravko Mamic. The 31-year-old midfielder is suspected of "committing the criminal offense of giving false testimony" on June 13 at the tribunal in eastern Croatia, according to the prosecutors' statement. The statement did not name Modric directly but referred to "a Croatian citizen born in 1985". Mamic is accused — along with his brother Zoran Mamic and two others — of abuse, power and graft that cost the former Croatian champions more than 15 million euros ($17.6 million), and the state 1.5 million euros. — Agencies
