Ronaldo in Dubai: towards the yes to the offer of the Saudis of Al Nassr

The countdown to Cristiano Ronaldo’s new life has begun. The Portuguese has been in Dubai for a few days, where he is training while waiting to finalize the pharaonic agreement with Al Nassr, the Saudi team to which CR7 should be linked until June 2025 with a contract worth around 200 million euros per season, between engagement and image rights. No return to the Champions League, therefore, barring sensational last-minute surprises, but an adventure in a country where the Ronaldo effect is just what Saudi football needs.

disappointment

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Cristiano is ready to restart after the World Cup disappointment with Portugal and a journey that ended up in the quarter-finals after losing his starting position in the national team of which he is captain. “Winning a World Cup with Portugal was the biggest and most ambitious dream of my career – CR7 wrote on Instagram last December 11, the last message for his 520 million followers -. That dream is over. It’s not worth reacting to the rumours, but I want you to know that while much has been written, said and speculated about, my dedication to Portugal has never changed.” After the Mundial disappointment, CR7 began to work for the rest of his career after his divorce from Manchester United made official before the start of the tournament in Qatar. He trained for a few days in Valdebebas, in the center of Real Madrid, but since last weekend he moved to Dubai, where he continued to work to recover the form he has never found this season and continued contacts with the Al Nassr already started before the World Cup.

new life

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There has been talk of CR7 in Saudi Arabia since the beginning of December. Indeed, since the summer, when the pharaonic Arab offer was the most concrete that arrived on the Portuguese table. “Yes, I refused 350 million in two years to play in the Saudi championship” CR7 had told journalist Piers Morgan in the interview that sanctioned the end of his relationship with United. Behind the scenes, with the support of the federation and the government that wants to transform Saudi Arabia into the next Qatar, Al Nassr has continued to work to make Ronaldo’s dream come true, to convince him to move to Riyadh. According to Marca, the agreement will be finalized by the end of the year and CR7 will already take the field with the new shirt at the beginning of 2023. For now he is in Dubai, waiting for everything to be ready. Waiting for the sheikhs to embrace not only his desire for football, still unchanged at 37, but also the CR7 company, the one that will help put the Saudi championship on the map of world football.