Cristiano Ronaldo's Saudi Soccer Saga Is Turning Sour
It’s a parable of the importance of adjusting to unfamiliar cultures — and of the limits of sportswashing.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- When Cristiano Ronaldo joined the Saudi Professional Football League early in 2023, soccer fans and commentators everywhere lamented that the Portuguese superstar was tarnishing his legacy. Although the contract he signed with Al Nassr club, reportedly worth more than $200 million a year, would make him the world’s highest-paid athlete, he would be playing many leagues below the standard befitting one of the greatest athletes to ever have kicked a ball.
At the time the deal was announced, Ronaldo, 37, was a little long in the tooth for a soccer player. But he was in terrific shape and, in the previous season, had been the top goal-scorer for the storied English club Manchester United, playing in the world’s best league. He was more than capable of skipping past the world’s best defenders, but he seemed to be copping out for cash. In , Jonathan Wilson, one of the sport’s preeminent writers, bemoaned that “there is something undignified” about the Portuguese star choosing to end his career in a Saudi sinecure.
A little over a year later, the cleats are on the other foot: It is the Saudis who are complaining of Ronaldo lowering their standards — of public behavior if not soccer. The player is being accused of making lewd gestures toward fans on several occasions. His most recent infraction was described by ESPN as “repeatedly pumping his hand forward in front of his pelvic area” in the direction of supporters of a rival club. It brought him a one-game suspension and a fine.
At one level, this is a parable about the importance of adjusting oneself to unfamiliar cultures. Although it has loosened up in recent years, Saudi Arabia, as millions of foreigners working there know, is, by Western standards a deeply conservative society. Ronaldo, who has a long history of peevish on-field behavior, has now discovered that what might pass as merely petulant in Manchester can be deeply offensive in Riyadh.
But at another level, this is also a cautionary tale about the limits of Saudi Arabia’s multi-billion-dollar campaign to use splashy investments in sports to boost its profile and soften its image. “ Sportswashing” is not an exact science. Stars like Ronaldo can draw attention, but it won’t always be the kind you want.
It doesn’t help that the massive Saudi investment in soccer has yielded poor returns. Despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars to lure the likes of Ronaldo, French striker Karim Benzema, Brazilian Neymar and dozens of other foreigners to play in the league, clubs have struggled to bring fans to their stadiums. The average attendance for the 2023-24 season is just 8,221. (In comparison, games in the English Premier League and Bundesliga average about 40,000 fans.) The international headlines about poor turnout — one game brought in just 144 spectators; another, 257 — are not the kind of attention Saudi officials were counting on.
If this is frustrating for Saudi league officials, imagine the impact on a player used to filling 80,000-seat arenas in Europe. What is the point of scoring goals galore for Al Nassr when so few people are watching?
To his credit, Ronaldo has also done his best to play the enthusiastic pitchman for the Saudi league, going so far as claiming it is better than France’s Ligue 1. But that has only earned him derision from the wider soccer community.
As so often in his career, Ronaldo’s choices are being compared — unfavorably — to that of his great rival, Lionel Messi. Last summer, the Argentinian superstar waved off an even more generous Saudi offer, choosing instead to join Inter Miami. Although Major League Soccer also amounts to a comedown for Messi, it is rated much higher than the Saudi league.
Inevitably, Ronaldo snarked about his rival’s choice. But most commentators, including my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Juan Pablo Spinetto, agreed that Messi had made the smarter calculation. And unlike Ronaldo, Messi isn’t lacking for an audience: The average MLS attendance in 2023 was 22,154, and it is averaging 30,022 in 2024. And, of course, Miami’s Latin-inflected culture has no great feat of acculturation by an Argentine who spent his formative years in Spain.
Ronaldo might wish he could ignore Messi’s smoother transition to the final phase of his playing career. But fans of Al Nassr’s rival clubs, keenly aware of the Portuguese player’s sensitivity to the comparison, have taken to chanting Messi’s name at him. Those chants have followed him through much of his career, but they undoubtedly echo louder in largely empty stadiums. It’s hard to say this of someone making $200 million a year, but … poor Ronaldo.
More From Bloomberg Opinion’s Bobby Ghosh:
- Soccer Should Crack Down on Abuse of Referees
- American Cricket’s (World) Cup Runneth Over
- A Eulogy for Long-Form Sports Journalism
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Bobby Ghosh is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering culture. Previously, he covered foreign affairs.
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