Benzema turned United down
10 Jul 2009 - 08:29:08
Karim Benzema has revealed that he had the chance to move to Manchester United before eventually deciding to join Real Madrid.
The France international was unveiled as Real's latest big-money signing on Thursday evening after Lyon had accepted a 35million euros bid for the 21-year-old last week.
Benzema said: "There were quite a few clubs that contacted me like Manchester (United), Inter Milan and Barcelona, but I decided to come here.
"Real Madrid are an excellent club. I've dreamt about playing here since I was 15 years old.
"Florentino (Madrid president Perez) spoke to me about the team and the project that he wanted to create. I wanted to play at Real Madrid anyway so he didn't have to convince me of hardly anything."
Real have also signed Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and Raul Albiol this summer and Benzema believes the club can enjoy a successful season.
He added: "I don't want to promise a set number of goals, although I hope to score a lot. With players like Kaka, (Cristiano) Ronaldo and Raul it will be very easy for us to get goals.
"I'm aware that there is great competition at the club and maybe I cannot always play, but I've come here to fight, so it's not going to be a problem."