Cristiano Ronaldo is in negotiations with Real Madrid over an "astronomical" new contract with that could potentially allow him to see out his career at the Spanish giant.
According to El Confidencial, the Spanish newspaper, Madrid President Florentino Perez has been startled into action by heavy interest in acquiring Ronaldo's services from Europe's biggest clubs.
And the two sides are now working on a deal that would keep Ronaldo in the Spanish capital until at least 2020, and possibly 2021.
That would be a bitter blow to the hopes of Paris Saint-Germain, the French club laden with gleaming new Qatari money, which has been hoping to lure Ronaldo to Ligue 1.
Ronaldo was reported by France Football to have met with PSG President Nasser al-Khelaifi in the French capital the day after Madrid overturned a 2-0 deficit against Wolfsburg courtesy of his hat-trick.
But sources close to the player and Jorge Mendes, his agent, have denied those claims.
Ronaldo is the top scorer this season in La Liga, Spain's top division, and also looks set to break his own Champions League scoring record, with Madrid into the semi-finals against Manchester City.
Yet his season has been pockmarked by speculation that he could leave Madrid for pastures fresh, after seven record-breaking years at the Santiago Bernabeu.
In mid-April, Ronaldo became the first player in history to strike 30 goals or more in six consecutive La Liga seasons.
In October 2015, he broke the Real Madrid scoring record of club legend Raul.
Real Madrid suffered a wobble in the middle of this season when it replaced Rafael Benitez, the coach now at Newcastle United in the Premier League, with another club icon in Zinedine Zidane.
Zidane endured a difficult start to his tenure, but Madrid now lies just a point behind Barcelona at the top of La Liga, as well as retaining a chance for its second Champions League in three years.
That settling of the seabed at what has been, in the recent past, one of Europe's most febrile elite clubs, may have smoothed over any desire Ronaldo has to leave.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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