Piers Morgan was not lying when he described the bombshell interview given to him by Cristiano Ronaldo on Talk TV last November as brutally honest. ‘I feel betrayed,’ Ronaldo griped about Manchester United, who he accused of trying to push him out, of failing to evolve since the Ferguson years and – in specific reference to the controversial Glazer family – of greed. There were gossipy lines, too. Gary Neville? NOT invited for dinner.
Clearly, Ronaldo’s second stint with the Red Devils fell apart. He was terminated; split from the superagent Jorge Mendes who, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo alleged this week, was given the final ultimatum ‘get me Chelsea or Bayern – or we break up’; and longtime friend Ricky Regufe brokered a deal more lucrative than any before with the Saudi Pro League team Al Nassr. Two years. £350m. You can buy more than a few Rollers for that; and his girlfriend Georgina Rodríguez got a head start, surprising him with a champagne convertible wrapped in a red bow for Christmas.
The official announcement of his signing was made on 30 December and the critics were quick to caw. He’s gambling his legacy! He’s a sell out! Jamie Carragher, the pundit and former Premier League player, stuck the knife in, live on Sky Sports on the same day. ‘Ronaldo has finished his career during an interview with Piers Morgan and Messi has won the World Cup. It’s not the best way to go out.’ Ouch.
Piers does not agree. ‘Thanks to the fall-out from our interview, Ronaldo signed the biggest transfer deal in football history, and is now the world’s highest-paid athlete, at the age of 37,’ he told me this week. ‘He’s also doing what he’s done throughout his career, and which for me gives him the edge over Messi, and that’s challenge himself in a new country, and new league, at a time when football in the Middle East is really taking off, as we saw at the Qatar World Cup where Morocco reached the semi-finals and Saudi Arabia beat the eventual winners, Messi’s Argentina.’
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‘He wanted freedom from Manchester United, where he rightly felt he had been badly disrespected by both the manager and senior club executives,’ Piers continued. ‘Ideally, I think he’d have preferred to play for another top club in the Champions League for a year or two, but Al Nassr made him a staggering offer, and I think the fresh challenge of raising the profile of football in a new region of the world, at the twilight of his incredible career, really appealed to him.’
As for Jamie Carragher? ‘He didn’t even get to finish his career with an interview with me – he wasn’t big enough,’ says Piers.
Relocation, Relocation
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A January relocation took place. Ronaldo was given a god’s welcome at Mrsool Park, his new home stadium, on 4 January. There were pyrotechnics and cheers from 25,000 strong. Although it didn’t go completely according to plan: he announced his pride at arriving to evolve football in… ‘South Africa.’ Jetlag? Riyadh socialites hardly seem to care. In the past week the couple and their five children have become the talk of the city. They moved into a suite at The Four Seasons Riyadh; Georgina made her Saudi social debut at the Joy Awards; and Ronaldo played his first Saudi Pro League game for Al Nassr. Al Nassr won, 1-0, against Ettifaq, although Ronaldo didn’t score.
Is he happy? ‘Definitely,’ says Piers. ‘I’ve swapped a few texts with him, and he’s absolutely loving it, on and off the pitch.’
Socially, it seems, Ronaldo and Rodríguez already rule in Riyadh, which is so big you really have to drive to get around. There are so many millionaires that Range Rovers on these streets may as well be Toyotas, one insider tells me. Georgina travelled to last weekend’s match – crocodile Birkin, skyscraper stilettos, Ronaldo strip, fur coat and three-man glam squad in tow – in another Rolls Royce with blacked out curtain windows and a bespoke starlight headliner.
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‘People here are football mad,’ says one former expat who lived in Riyadh for a decade. When the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wins a football match, he goes on, there is a lot of good-natured hooting of horns. ‘When I was taking an Uber, the Saudi driver would say, “Oh, you’re from England. Which football team do you support?” I’d have to say, “I’ve got to be honest, I don’t follow football.” And he would find that incomprehensible.’
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There is one lone voice of caution: a senior sports executive in the region, who’s just stepped off a plane at Riyadh. ‘A lot of us [in the industry] are a little bit cynical about Ronaldo, because he said about six weeks beforehand, that if he wanted lots of money, he’d be playing in Saudi Arabia. And that wasn’t what motivated him.’ Nevertheless, Ronaldo is one of the biggest players of all time and ‘the way people follow football in the Middle East is they have favourite players and if their favourite player moves club, they start following that club.’ For the first time, the player has come to them.
