Cristiano Ronaldo was close to joining an MLS club before moving to Saudi Arabia, with talk of both a transfer and ownership of the team taking place.
In early 2023, Cristiano Ronaldo joined Saudi Arabia’s Al Nassr club on a three-year contract, after he and the Man United board of directors unexpectedly agreed to “terminate the contract”.
It is known that at that time, after many irreconcilable conflicts with coach Erik Ten Hag, the Portuguese striker asked his agent to find a new destination, and almost immediately, CR7 had many different destinations to choose from, the most prominent of which was the MLS.
Recently, SPORTbible updated that the head coach of MLS team Sporting KC, Mr. Peter Vermes shared with the Kansas City Star that the club had previously held many meetings and discussions with Ronaldo’s senior representative Jorge Mendes. He explained that everything went very smoothly, it seemed like the deal was about to be signed but fell apart at the last minute.
Ronaldo had a very smooth negotiation with Sporting KC. Photo: Daily Mail.
The Athletic reports that in their plan, MLS chiefs have a database of 50 players who would bring the greatest value to the development of Major League Soccer, with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the No. 1 and No. 2 positions; the remaining player in the top 3 is Kylian Mbappe.
MLS was very serious about the deal and their approach was also highly appreciated, especially the creative terms related to domestic and international shirt sales, buying back club shares,… conditions that Leo Messi himself later nodded before signing an official contract with Inter Miami.
According to the report, Ronaldo was the first person to be linked to MLS, Inter Miami only “jumped” in to recruit Leo Messi after the Portuguese striker decided not to go to the US but to Saudi Arabia.
