Cristiano Ronaldo To Stay At Al Nassr: Portuguese football legend Cristiano Ronaldo has confirmed that he will be staying at Saudi Pro League club Al-Nassr for the foreseeable future. This puts an end to the speculations of him moving to a different club to play in the FIFA Club World Cup 2025.
The CWC has been a thing for a long time now. But FIFA has radically updated the format of this competition. While before, it was a seven-team tournament that barely put a dent in the global football calendar, it has now become a 32-team tournament formatted like the FIFA World Cup, with eight groups of four teams each competing for a place in the playoffs.
Teams from all continental conferences will participate in the competition. The team that will represent Saudi Arabia in the competition is the 2023-24 SPL champion Al-Hilal, the team Neymar used to play for before moving to Santos earlier this year.
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To promote this competition and spread its influence all over the world, FIFA wants all the most popular footballers in the world to play in it. There was some controversy in the way Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami qualified for the tournament, many claiming that it was only done to have Messi play in the Club World Cup.
Cristiano Ronaldo, despite being 40 years old, is still arguably the most popular athlete in the world. His controversial move from Manchester United to Al-Nassr in 2022 is responsible for making the SPL the place to be for big-name players looking for massive paychecks.
Cristiano Ronaldo To Stay At Al Nassr
However, despite being his domestic league’s highest goalscorer for the past two years, CR7 has not been able to win the league with Al-Nassr and hence did not qualify for the CWC. So with his contract with his current club coming to an end later this month, many expected him to move in early June, a few weeks before his contract expires, and sign with a team that will be playing in the World Cup.
Although it now seems that it is not going to be the case. After leading Portugal to a victory in the final of the UEFA Nations League over Spain, Ronaldo commented on his future with Al-Nassr. The Portuguese GOAT had this to say:
“The tears were of joy. When you win something for Portugal, it’s always special, but there’s nothing like winning for the national team, in my opinion. This generation deserved it, and we were going to have a bit of luck and merit, and we were going to win the final. We knew it was going to be difficult, but we deserved it, and this gives us confidence and allows us to go to the World Cup with more confidence. Future? It won’t change anything. Al-Nassr, yes,”
A deal is yet to be finalised between Cristiano Ronaldo and Al-Nassr. While he will not play in the FIFA Club World Cup, he has another goal in mind: to score 1000 goals in his professional career. With his current tally being at 938 goals, he would at least need three stellar seasons to breach that mark, and staying in the Saudi league is his best bet, where the competition is relatively low-level but the pay is not.
Check Out: Cristiano Ronaldo To Stay At Al Nassr
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