12.03.2010
Wenger rules out Real Madrid switch
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger insists he would reject any offer from Real Madrid to take charge at the Bernabeu.
Reports in Spain suggest current Real manager Manuel Pellegrini is likely to be sacked after Lyon eliminated his side from the Champions League in midweek.
Real are top of La Liga but Pellegrini's failure to end the team's six-year wait to reach the quarter-finals is set to cost him his job.
Wenger has been a long-term target for Real - the Spanish club tried to sign him up last season before appointing Pellegrini last June - and they are expected to renew interest in the Frenchman if they make a managerial change.
But Wenger maintains he has no intention of breaking his contract with the Gunners.
"I am always going to stay to the end of my contract and I am going (to stay at Arsenal) until 2011. There is no way I am going to break it," Wenger said.
"For me, it is the worst possible moment to come back on that. At the moment my focus is fully on Hull City on Saturday they may be less glamorous than Real Madrid, but they are much more important in my life at the moment."
Real's latest European flops comes despite their massive pre-season spending spree on Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and Karim Benzema.
Wenger believes Real's exit proves that money doesn't guarantee success in Europe's elite club competition.
He added: "It shows that 240 million pounds does not necessarily buy you the Champions League and that in Europe you have no guarantee of success.
"If you can spend that kind of money every year, you will get there in the end, but at the moment it is difficult for them to take.
"In the last five years we have been in the final, a semi-final and two quarter-finals in England we don't rate that as an achievement any more because we are used to it, but that consistency is not easy to achieve."
Source: © 2010 AFP - Paul Ellis
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