Sir Alex Ferguson has been described as "a bit senile" by the Real Madrid president, Ramón Calderón, as relations between the clubs hit a fresh low. Calderón was responding to remarks in which Manchester United's manager hit out at Real's pursuit of Cristiano Ronaldo.

"What made it really obscene was that Madrid, as General Franco's club, had a history of being able to get whoever and whatever they wanted before democracy came to Spain," Ferguson said.

The Spanish newspaper Marca reacted yesterday with a series of pictures which showed Ferguson changing into Franco and quoted Calderón as saying: "I am not going to waste any time answering him. I admire his history but recently he has gone a bit senile."