Football is only a small part of the Portuguese Übermensch’s attractiveness in the social media age, and he is unconcerned with the morals of his paymasters.
The victors of Asia’s second-tier club competition, the AFC Champions League Two, will take home roughly £1.8 million next season. Just over £1 million will be awarded to the Saudi King’s Cup champions. The Saudi Pro League’s prize money is not made public, however based on the most recent data available (for 2022–2023), it is approximately the same. The King Saud University Stadium has weekly attendances ranging from 10,000 to 25,000, with premium tickets starting at around £12. Of course, pie and program sales are also taken into account.
Al-Nassr’s ambition in giving Cristiano Ronaldo an estimated £492 million over the next two years is very admirable. Even if they win every game at home, defeat Istiklol of Tajikistan’s 1xBet Higher League and Al-Wehdat of the Jordanian Pro League, and make the most of merchandise and sponsorships, it’s still hard to imagine how they’ll be able to pay a base salary of £488,000 per day, not including the bonuses and perks that will make the entire package far more than that.
A 15% ownership stake in Al-Nassr, additional incentives for winning the Pro League or the Golden Boot, a private jet allowance, 16 full-time employees, including two chefs and three gardeners, and a bonus for each time Ronaldo successfully presses an opposition player are all reportedly included in the deal. Of course, the last one was a joke. Ronaldo’s new deal, which was announced last week with much hoopla, represents a significant shift in the superstar athlete’s maturation amid the stifling onslaught of numbers. It further blurs the boundaries between what we used to call “sport” and what we used to call “the other stuff.”
To start, what precisely is Saudi Arabia receiving for its investment? Since Al-Nassr is a majority-owned club and a branch of the Saudi government, it is naturally directing enormous sums of money into its domestic league without being constrained by financial fair play regulations or cost limitations. Although he has had far greater luck than the majority of migrant laborers who have recently entered the country, Ronaldo is actually a Saudi employee.
There have been rumors in recent months that Ronaldo could sign a short-term contract to play in the Club World Cup, which would seem to be the ideal competition for him because it is only focused on influencer fame, celebrity power, and a noticeable lack of running. In terms of politics and business, there was absolutely no excuse why this shouldn’t occur. We may therefore draw the conclusion that, despite the fact that numerous teams were interested in his star power, none were willing to shell out the going fee to restructure their entire system around a 40-year-old attacker who had lost about half of his speed in 2017.
Of all, Ronaldo’s abilities on the football field are only a small part of his attraction these days. The fact that Ronaldo is the most followed individual on Instagram and the third most followed on X after Elon Musk and Barack Obama is significant in an era where power is being reimagined along the lines of social media clout and the attention economy and the real economy are quickly merging into one. Ronaldo is essentially a one-man city state due to his fame; he is an influencer first and an athlete second, with his goals and assists completely unrelated to the number of spectators he can attract.
Essentially, we have a redesigned professional athlete that can create whole new realities around themselves, akin to a plutocratic demigod. One where the Saudi Pro League is “one of the top five leagues in the world,” as he recently stated, or where the 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia will be “the most beautiful ever.” “Those who are unaware of how competitive it is haven’t played here.” This is essentially untrue by any standard, as the Saudi Pro League is ranked as the 29th best in the world by Opta. Naturally, Ronaldo would have needed to participate in every other game by his own standards in order to reach a well-reasoned conclusion.But when you have 659 million Instagram followers, maybe just stating something makes it happen.
This does not imply that the football is unimportant. Although it now serves more as an accessory to Ronaldo’s power than as its source, it is evident that football is still fundamental to his sense of self. Similar to how Donald Trump plays golf, Ronaldo still plays football as part of a larger cult of personality, something to be seen doing, and material for the feed. A branding exercise, complete with manipulated data and a group of submissive cheering acolytes, devoid of any context or impartial assessment. In addition to the persistent obsession with his body, Ronaldo is positioned as a sort of Übermensch, a transcendent being, a higher form of biology, even though he still has the uncanny ability to hit free kicks directly into walls.
As a result, Ronaldo the football player is no longer being paid by Al-Nassr (and to a lesser extent the Portuguese national team). The spiritual leader, attention-getter, aura, abs, and soft-power effect of Ronaldo are what they are purchasing. They are purchasing a spot on his grid, giving them the chance to have one of the most well-known men in the world carry out their wishes. Considering his new contract as a sort of trade agreement, a strategic partnership between two cynical regimes with generally similar social values and intoxicated on their own power, may be helpful.
When Ronaldo announced his new deal last week, he proudly said, “I belong to Saudi Arabia.” Naturally, a lot of well-known athletes from a variety of sports have given in to the allure of the Saudi riyal and will do so in the future. However, there is a difference in tone between aggressively supporting a rogue state on the largest possible platform and accepting its funds. We have discussed Saudi investment for years as a sort of ethical conundrum that requires a careful balancing act between financial interests, reputational concerns, and human rights. It is evident to Ronaldo that there is no such conundrum.