Cristiano Ronaldo - the video game!

You know when a transfer has probably been dragging on for a little bit too long when someone has time to make a video game based entirely on the will-he, won't-he, who cares anyway farrago.

Ronaldo2Real is a new game from Mousebreaker and begins with the 'hero', one Cristiano Ronaldo, sitting with his bad leg up in a hospital room. I'm pretty sure that a sun lounger would have been better, although I haven't got onto the later levels to see if this is actually involved. I suspect it might be.

Anyway the general idea is to get Ronaldo to Real Madrid. Of course, if you get good at this game, which involves avoiding the 'Red Baron' Sir Alex Ferguson, you could effectively find yourself at the centre of a 'tapping up' storm.

The situation regarding 'tapping up' is quite bizarre. To my recollection, prior to the spectacular infringements by Chelsea and Ashley Cole, the only person to be properly charged was David O'Leary regarding his pursuit of James Beattie when at Aston Villa. Crazily he never ended up signing the striker, who moved to Everton instead, largely because the alleged 'tapping up' was simply acknowledging in an interview that he would consider signing him.

Now Rafa Benitez is telling all and sundry that he wants Gareth Barry and Robbie Keane and pretty much succeeding in his pursuit of both, although it would be hilarious if Barry were to sign for Arsenal. I suspect that Gareth Barry's destination could have a large bearing on the title race. Either Liverpool or Arsenal would be greatly enhanced by the Villa midfielder.

Ferguson at one stage was accused on hypocrisy by Tottenham, of all people, when it appeared he had undermined his own disgusted stance against Real Madrid by discussing his attempts to bring Dimitar Berbatov to Old Trafford. It turns out that, while everyone knew he was talking about Berbatoiv, he had never actually used his name. The interview in question had been fleshed out by a Scandinavian website. And Fergie thinks the BBC is bad.

Now it is Spurs, and more particularly their chairman Daniel Levy, being accused by Spanish club Sevilla of hypocrisy. Sevilla, after all, saw their manager Juande Ramos linked with a move to White Hart Lane for months following his public meeting with Spurs officials last August. Much like Ashley Cole, the inevitable followed a few months later.

All of which makes it all the more unlikely that, five years from now, Manchester United fans will be reminiscing about the quaint stories linking their long-serving star Cristiano Ronaldo with Real Madrid years ago and how people were so taken in they even made a game about it.