It's always a big shame to write off a £200,000 Ferrari - not least when there's a credit crunch on. But when the Manchester United footballer Cristiano Ronaldo walked away from the wreck of his red 599 GTB, things weren't all bad. He was unhurt, for one thing. And he still got to go to training in a Bentley.

Edwin van der Sar, the United goalkeeper, was on the A538 just behind Ronaldo yesterday. When the Portuguese forward's Ferrari clipped a metal handrail in a tunnel near Manchester airport and smacked into a barrier, ripping one of its front wheels off and crushing it beyond reasonable repair, his team-mate pulled over in his Bentley Continental GT and gave him a lift.

Witnesses confirmed that Ronaldo was unhurt. Rumours that he spent a fair bit of time rolling around on the ground pretending to be injured are probably the work of satirists.

Ronaldo will have felt perfectly at ease in Van der Sar's Bentley, though. The 23-year-old has one of his own - a Continental GT Speed, bought in September for £140,000. It's in the garage alongside his Porsche, his BMW and his Rolls-Royce Phantom, offering the opportunity for a sensational “My other car is a...” bumper sticker.

In all, Ronaldo is rumoured to have spent £2 million on performance cars since joining United five years ago, lending credence to the theory that the luxury market is now sustained almost entirely by the custom of Premier League footballers.

But it is Bentleys in particular that seem to have become every footballer's transport of choice - not least at Ronaldo's club, where no fewer than seven current players and the manager have been seen behind the wheel of Bentleys. We used to talk about a team bus. Now it makes sense to talk about the team's Bentleys.

The Continental GT is in widespread demand across the Premier League. The car has come to define the modern footballer in the way that, in other eras, a mullet hairstyle or an interest in the music of Phil Collins did.

It was a Bentley that John Terry, the England captain, left in a disabled parking space last year. And it was a Bentley that Wayne Rooney put under the tree for his wife this Christmas - making it a his'n'hers pair, as Roo already has a GT of his own.

So what is it about this formidable coupé that reaches out so achingly to today's top players? Well, the GT can reach 202mph (though the consequences of allowing it to do so include imprisonment) and its exquisite leather interior gives every impression of having been lovingly hand-stitched by elves.

Yet it is the smallest car in the Bentley range, hence the nickname “Baby Bentley”, and, bearing in mind that Bentleys can cost £225,000, it represents something of a snip at about £110,000: two weeks' work for a Premier League player of middling ability.

Introduced in 2003, the GT revived Bentley's fortunes. The two-door coupé was revolutionary. It was clearly a Bentley - the traditional status symbol of the working-class man made good - but it was a sports car at the same time. It brought a new generation of younger customers who, far from being members of the Royal Family, were headed by Gordon Ramsay. (The television chef, a former footballer, owns a GT.)

In 2006 Alan Curbishley, then the manager of West Ham United, announced that he had detected “a baby Bentley culture” at the club. He saw around him players who were softened by luxury. Curbishley was determined to root out that culture. To the relief of the British car industry, he was unsuccessful.

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