Cristiano Ronaldo would have been 'worth £1bn' in his prime with Kylian Mbappe and Jude Bellingham told they should be grateful for legendary Portuguese's Real Madrid influence

In the summer of 2009, Ronaldo set sail for Madrid after Los Blancos shelled out a then world-record £80m for the forward. The rest is history, with the Portuguese netting 450 goals in 438 appearances and winning 15 trophies, including two La Liga titles, four Champions League triumphs and two Copa del Rey crowns.

With time and a consistently inflating market, transfer fees have hit the ceiling. There have been quite a few £100m transfers in the past decade with Neymar's move to Paris Saint-Germain for £200m currently being the most expensive deal of all time.

Owen believes Ronaldo would have shattered all records if he forked out a transfer in current market conditions and even "£500 million" would have been cheap for the talismanic forward.

In an interview with Genting Casino, Owen said: "If you look at the transfer record now of over £200 million, you’d have to say that Cristiano Ronaldo was worth more than that at Manchester United. In hindsight, for what he gives you, look at the amount of Champions League medals he's going to pretty much win you single-handedly, for the amount of shirts and the publicity and the merchandise around the world that he's going to sell.

"In hindsight, I think 500 million would be cheap. You could even double that if you look at the goals, the trophies, the shirts, and how much the clubs have benefited from having him there. How he's grown their brand, how he's won them trophies and made them all this money. So I guess if you'd said to them at that point how much he would give you for nine seasons, they might say yes to a billion pounds, forget about £80 million. £500 million would be cheap."

Real Madrid splashed the cash for Jude Bellingham last summer and further reinforced their squad in 2024 by signing Kylian Mbappe after his deal expired with Paris Saint-Germain. Despite these mega signings they are in a robust financial situation and Owen believes that much of the credit goes to Ronaldo.

"Since he (Ronaldo) played for Real Madrid they’ve thrown hundreds and hundreds of millions on the new stadium, they are in a great financial position," he said. "They're paying all this money to Kylian Mbappe and Jude Bellingham - a lot of this will have been off the back of the success of Cristiano Ronaldo."

According to La Liga's latest spending capabilities, Real Madrid still have the highest salary cap in the league at €754m (£636m). They will return to action against Real Sociedad on Saturday in La Liga.