Laughing for Cristiano Ronaldo now previous statements after a mega contract in Saudi Arabia | sport

Ronaldo is certainly not the first star player to earn some extra money in a desert state at the end of his career for another few years. What’s striking is that the 37-year-old striker has repeatedly said he wouldn’t do that. He was convinced of it even last month.

Now that Ronaldo has signed, previous interviews are popping up all over the place and getting lots of laughs. For example, from 2015. Then he said about the end of his career: ,,I want to retire with dignity. At the top level, in a good club. Not in the United States, Qatar or the United Arab Emirates. Not that it’s not good, but I can’t see myself playing football there.”

And from 2016. Xavi, now FC Barcelona coach, said that his former teammate Lionel Messi was the best player in his opinion, and that Ronaldo was unlucky to have played football during the same period. Comments that did not please the star of Real Madrid at the time. ,,Xavi, he plays in Qatar, doesn’t he?”, he mocked in an interview. ,,Does he still play there?

And his already high-profile interview with Piers Morgan, which led to his departure from Manchester United, only becomes all the more remarkable. A week before the World Cup, he said money was not his motivation. “Otherwise you would be playing in Saudi Arabia,” Morgan said then, to which Ronaldo replied “exactly” and said he believed he could still add value to top clubs.

Former England players and current analysts Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville are united in their assessment. “The club he was looking for in Europe won’t have come for him, ex-teammate Neville told Sky Sports. It was his option to continue. It’s a sad ending. We probably saw the last of Ronaldo .”

“It is indeed a sad ending for him in some ways,” added Carragher. “He and Messi are two of the greatest players of all time. But Ronaldo ended his career with an interview with Piers Morgan, while Messi won the World Cup. Ronaldo chose the worst path.”

However, this ‘worst way’ will also earn the Portuguese more than half a million euros a day in the coming years. Everyday.

Al-Nassr has already gained millions of social media followers after luring Ronaldo. On Instagram, the nine-time national champion, trained by Frenchman Rudi Garcia, went from 900,000 to more than 3.7 million followers in less than a day. Around noon on Saturday, the reach of the English-speaking Twitter account had already increased to more than 450,000 followers, where it had only 90,000 before the arrival of the Portuguese international.