Juventus star Cristiano Ronaldo has said the rape allegation made against him is "interfering in my life" and revealed it was his relationship with Real Madrid President Florentino Perez that prompted him to leave the club in the summer.
Last month, a police investigation into a rape allegation made against Ronaldo by Kathryn Mayorga in 2009 was reopened. Mayorga has accused Ronaldo of raping her in a Las Vegas hotel room and paying her $375,000 for her silence on the matter, claims he denies.
On the allegations, he said in an interview with France Football (h/t the Guardian's Dominic Fifield):
"Of course, this story is interfering in my life. I have a partner, four children, an aging mother, sisters, a brother, a family with whom I am very close. Not to mention my reputation, which is that of someone exemplary.
"Imagine what it means when someone accuses you of rape, whether you have all that or not. I know who I am and what I did. Truth will out one day. And the people who criticise me or seek to expose my life today, who make it into a circus, these people will see."
Ronaldo joined Juventus after nine years with Real, in which he helped the club win La Liga twice and the UEFA Champions League four times.
Discussing his exit from the Santiago Bernabeu, he said:
"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. 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."
This article will be updated to provide more information on this story as it becomes available.
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