THERE is much to admire about Cristiano Ronaldo, qualities that were epitomised by one glorious moment during last month's Champions League semi-final when his 40-yard free-kick cut through the north London air like an Exocet until its flight was eventually broken by the back of the Arsenal net.

Ronaldo is a very good footballer but likes to hog the limelight off the pitch.

Such qualities are a dangerous mix; a combination that eventually becomes too toxic to handle in the context of a team of highly-paid and over-indulged individuals.

In truth, all that separates Ronaldo from many of his fellow Premier League colleagues is that his love of himself is perhaps just a little bit more intense than the others.

They too posture, pout, whinge, whine, dive and fall over far too readily. But none of them does so to quite the extent of Ronaldo.

In the end, faced with the prospect of another season of more of the same and endless speculation about where Ronaldo would rather be resting his head at night next season, Sir Alex agreed to the sale.

In exchange for £80 million and the prospect of having the pressure on his wage bill reduced by a hundred-odd grand a week, Sir Alex cashed in. Ronaldo had simply become too high maintenance.

Ronaldo is well worthy of sport's Ballon D'Or for the most expensive both in financial and emotional terms to run of sporting commodities.

So who, in the absence of Ronaldo, is poised to assume the mantle of British sport's king of high maintenance? Here are five candidates to mull over.

Danny Cipriani is rugby's answer to Ronaldo. He has extraordinary skills and a tanned complexion that leaves pasty-faced team-mates green with envy.

Cipriani's off-field lifestyle and reputation appears to be catching up with him. He not only failed to make the Lions squad for the tour of South Africa, but Martin Johnson also overlooked him for the two England Tests against Argentina.

Cipriani loves the ladies and his various trysts are widely reported in the tabloids. His relationship with actress/model girlfriend Kelly Brook attracted the headline writers for all the wrong reasons and when he failed to deliver on the pitch after a long spell out through injury, the knives came out.

The absurdity of professional football, and Newcastle United in particular, was perfectly illustrated this week by the revelation that the English game's most decorated thug, Joey Barton, receives £675,000 a year from his employers for his "image rights".

Barton earned more than £140,000 of that fee while serving 11 weeks of a six-month prison sentence for common assault and affray after being involved in an incident outside a McDonald's restaurant in Liverpool.

Newcastle paid almost £6 million for Barton two years ago, after a career blighted by controversy at Manchester City. It was while at Eastlands that Barton stubbed out a cigar in the eye of a team-mate at the club's Christmas party and received a four-month suspended sentence for attacking team-mate Ousmane Dabo during training.

The Frenchman was left badly bruised and almost lost his sight in one eye. Barton was also sent home from a summer tour in Thailand after getting involved in a fight with a 15-year-old Everton fan.

Kevin Pietersen comes from the sleepy Natal town of Pietermaritzburg which was once described by the novelist Tom Sharpe as "half the size of a New York cemetery and twice as dead". Given the brutal batter's propensity for talking loudly about himself and his considerable ability, it is perhaps just as well he came to Nottingham.

Not that we found him particularly easy to live with or indeed us good enough to live with him. He soon found himself out-of-step with the Nottinghamshire dressing-room.

In return, Pietersen made no secret of the fact he rated neither the Notts coach nor his captain and as his relationship with team-mates deteriorated further, he steadfastly refused to acknowledge them when passing batting landmarks.

Then, when his career at the club finally ended, the dressing room delivered the coup de gras and dumped his kit bag over the front of the Trent Bridge balcony and on to the pavilion steps 20 feet below.

Not even the harshest critic would dispute the fact that Andy Murray's attitude and demeanour is following the same upward curve as his tennis these days.

Who knows, in three weeks' time we may even be feting him as the first British men's singles winner at Wimbledon for 73 years. Yet it is beyond doubt that when it comes to high running costs, Murray has form.

The fixed on-court expressions suggesting pain and discomfort, the monotone voice, the tantrums, the serial sackings of coaches, the minor injury that once left his Davis Cup team-mates in the lurch. Yet nothing quite compares to the hair-brained scheme of the Lawn Tennis Association a couple of years ago that saw them answer Murray's call that he have his coach's £750,000 salary paid for by the governing body.

That in spite of the fact the Scot was flying up the world rankings and well on the way to becoming a multi- millionaire. Thankfully, it proved to be a relatively shortlived arrangement. Murray sacked him, leaving the LTA to pick up the bill.

After Bath rugby club's joint captains left the club amid allegations of pub brawls and drug-taking, which they have subsequently denied, and the sacking of England prop Matt Stevens over a cocaine problem, you'd think Bath would steer clear of controversy. But on Sunday, Luke Watson, dubbed the most hated man in South Africa, joined on a two-year deal.

According to head coach Steve Meehan, "Luke Watson is a very talented rugby player and an experienced leader who is yet to reach his peak."

That may be so. But it flies in the face of these words penned by a leading South African sports editor: "Luke Watson's petulance and blatant disrespect of his team-mates has polluted the traditions and values of playing rugby for SA. He's not fit to wear the jersey. He never was."

Watson had just pulled out of the South Africa tour of Europe after claiming that the sight of the Springbok jersey made him vomit, while dismissing team-mates such as Victor Matfield and Schalk Burger as "Dutchmen" – a derogatory term used by English-speaking South Africans for Afrikaners.