Cristiano Ronaldo is close to signing a lucrative seven-year contract with an-Nasr club and Saudi Arabia, according to Spanish newspaper Marca.
The 37-year-old gunner is expected to play for two-and-a-half years and act as an ambassador for the country in its bid to win the 2030 World Cup alongside Egypt and Greece.
The five-time Ballon d’Or winner would earn an astronomical €200m (over 4.8bn kroner) per season as a player. In the role of ambassador, his salary would even increase. To afford his monstrous salary, al-Nasr would release three players.
“We would like to bring him to our league. We want to surprise the signatures of many of the best players from around the world. As a union, we would be more than satisfied,” said Football Federation of Saudi Arabia (SAFF) president Jásir Misihál.
Information about Ronaldo’s deal with al-Nasr appeared during the recently concluded world championship in Qatar. But the national team’s all-time leading goalscorer denied it.
The 2016 European champion ended up at Manchester United in November, whose management and manager Erik ten Hag had previously criticized in a television interview. Lui received an offer from Saudi Arabia from a then unnamed club already in the summer, but decided to continue at Old Trafford. In the England team, however, he dropped out of the starting lineup and had a disagreement with Ten Hague. Ronaldo returned to Manchester last year after 12 years, meanwhile playing for Real Madrid and Juventus.
The star striker didn’t do well even at the World Cup in Qatar. In the opening match, he became the first player in history to score in five world championships thanks to a goal in Ghana’s goal, but he didn’t add another goal record. Now former national team coach Fernando Santos replaced him after an hour of the third match against Korea, which the star did not like. Santos didn’t like Ronaldo’s angry reaction, but according to him they talked about the situation.
Against Switzerland, however, Ronaldo was missing from the starting line-up in a major tournament for the first time since 2008, according to the coach for tactical reasons. In the unsuccessful quarter-final against Morocco, he too only came on in the second half. After Portugal’s elimination, he started training individually in Real Madrid’s training centre.
An-Nasr is a nine-time champion of Saudi Arabia, in the 90s of the last century Dušan Uhrin Sr. also briefly led him. The team is coached by the French Rudi Garcia, former coach of AS Roma, Lyon or Marseille. The squad includes Colombian goalkeeper David Ospina, who previously played for Arsenal and Napoli, former Bayern Munich midfielder Luiz Gustavo from Brazil and Cameroon national team captain Vincent Aboubakar.
