In the midst of a large fireworks display including a laser show, Cristiano Ronaldo marches through a trellis and is celebrated by the enthusiastic spectators. The Portuguese superstar is presented with a bizarre show in his new footballing home in Saudi Arabia.
Cristiano Ronaldo, the expelled football king, has a new empire. And he entered it for the first time on Tuesday night. Shortly before midnight, the hunched giant had stood up again, strutted casually down the gangway from his plane, laid out with a red carpet, and was back where he feels most comfortable: in the heroized center. The springy steps down to the airport in Riyadh mark a turning point in football. Ronaldo leaves his kingdom of Europe behind. All the criticism, malice, felt humiliation and dives into a world in which there is only one monarch: him, Cristiano Ronaldo. The fact that his eternal rival Lionel Messi was crowned world champion just a few days ago on the Arabian Peninsula, in Qatar, and now has this title ahead of him, seems like something from a different time this Tuesday.
Saudi Arabia, Al-Nassr Football Club, welcomes its new superstar, the greatest this club, this country has ever seen. The whole desert state is “Hala Ronaldo” these hours. Unmissable. On every corner. And they put the world at his feet again. Financially, the 37-year-old will earn half a billion euros here in the next two and a half years, and verbally. When he was introduced, moderator Wiam al-Dachil introduced him as “the greatest footballer in the world”. That was good. For many, this duel has finally gone to Messi since mid-December. What should actually be a press conference subsequently degenerates into a bizarre honoring of heroes. There is no working atmosphere in the historically well-staffed auditorium, here there is glowing enthusiasm. Again and again, fists in victory are stretched, thumbs raised and Siuuu calls intoned. Ronaldo likes that. Questions aren’t allowed, by the way. Here he is the legend he has created himself over the past two decades, but which he also tore to pieces himself.
Forgotten, repressed, shifted to another geological age. In Saudi Arabia they are proclaiming a new era. And the king promises to fill it with life. “My job is done in Europe. I’ve won everything, I’ve played for the biggest clubs. Now I have a new mission in Asia.” In European football he “broke a lot of records, I want to do that here too.” When asked about his gigantic contract, which should bring him around 500 million euros by mid-2025, he said with conviction: “I’m a unique player.” A unique contract is therefore “normal” for him. The sporting crash and his strange actions over the past few months may have scratched his legend but not his ego.
And nobody should believe that he couldn’t have acted at the highest level in sport. He had “many opportunities”, received “offers from many clubs in Europe, Brazil, Australia and the USA”, “but I chose this club,” said the 37-year-old. But he decided on this new chapter out of conviction. Or maybe due to a lack of lucrative sporting offers? No club with Champions League ambitions had been found in Europe. For him, the move to the leaders of the Saudi Pro League, with its 16 teams and crowds of between 1,500 and 15,000 spectators, is “an opportunity to help, contribute my experience and let the club grow”. Football has “changed in the last 10, 15 years”, the teams outside of Europe are now much further along. Seeing a new magnificence in everything is a special quality.
Perhaps Ronaldo’s move to Al-Nassr is also short-lived. As the newspaper “Marca” writes, his contract contains a clause that allows a loan to Newcastle United from the Premier League, which, like Al-Nassr, is majority owned by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. The condition is that Newcastle land in one of the top four places in the Premier League and thus participate in the Champions League. That could work: Newcastle are currently third. Then the five-time premier class winner could compete again in the premier class.
The Western football world is largely in agreement that Ronaldo missed the timely jump. In the closing yards of his career, he’s more of an aggrieved diva than the outstanding footballer he’s been for so long. There was hardly any room for him at Manchester United this season. If he was allowed to play from the start, then in less important competitions. It will always be remembered that he scored his first goal of the 2022/23 Europa League season at Sheriff Tiraspol. From eleven meters. In Moldova, CR7 had been working on its resurrection after a desperate and unsuccessful club search in the summer. It was a brief resurrection. Who hadn’t waved everything off? FC Bayern and Borussia Dortmund also had no use for one of the greatest fascination in the history of world football.
What else is remembered? A denied substitution at United. An absurd TV settlement with his ex-employer and a World Cup in which the question, which is actually forbidden in Portugal, about the superstar’s renunciation was clearly answered: CR7 was pushed off the pedestal of inviolability in Qatar. Only a few kilometers (measured by the size of the planet) away, they are now putting the injured icon back on the throne. It’s blue-yellow. His palace: the empire of Al-Nassr. His empire: the Saudi League. A fantastic deal for the state. Ronaldo’s transition to Al-Nassr in sporting insignificance is a milestone in the desert state’s forced sports washing strategy.
“Good for the league, the whole country,” Minister of Sport Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal proudly announced before the transfer was completed. That the Portuguese is no longer the overplayer of recent years? That’s totally rubbish. That’s not what the Gulf state is about. Rather, it is the continuation of an image policy that Saudi Arabia has been persistently trying to achieve for years. The kingdom, which has been heavily criticized for its human rights violations, wants to benefit from the global brand CR7, use its reputation and land the 2030 World Cup. With the Ambassador Ronaldo.
It’s here now. And the whole country is crazy about him. In the stadium, tens of thousands of fans bustled about the performance, sorry, the enthronement. They paid money for a little bit of luck – and a few for one of the legend’s autographed balls. He shot them into the audience in his new jersey, of course with the number 7. New sanctuaries in the desert state. Everything Ronaldo touches seems to enchant him. Here he has that magic again, with which he changed international football, especially at Real Madrid. His pace, the dribbles, his goals – works of art, created for eternity. For another eternity. One that is becoming a reality in Riyadh and the Kingdom of the Saudis. In a way that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. “In my eyes, I will end my career at the highest level,” the Portuguese said in a 2015 TV interview. “With dignity at a big club.” Times change. The understanding of dignity too.
Anyone who experienced this heroization can hardly imagine that only a shadow of his former greatness will remain on the field. Possibly as early as Thursday when it comes to Al Tai. In any case, Ronaldo feels ready. When the coach puts him up. There can hardly be any doubt about that. Even if Rudi Garcia had them, the pressure from those in power would certainly be too great. The new attraction has to be in the ring as soon as possible. In the future, this will be Msool Park, which was already very well filled that evening. By the way, there were also some women in the stands. Female spectators have only been allowed to watch soccer games in stadiums in Saudi Arabia since 2018.
After a long wait, shattering techno music and a small laser and pyro show, the crowd escalated when the new hero arrived. It was a celebration as thunderous as one of his numerous trophy-winning goals. A bizarre spectacle. As much as the king had nothing left to gain in western football, he is welcome, revered, here and now. And only him. A new empire painted for the expelled King Ronaldo. His probably last as a footballer. But also his most meaningless.
(This article was first published on Tuesday, January 03, 2023.)
