Cristiano Ronaldo was officially presented as a player for Saudi Arabia’s club Al-Nassr and the Portuguese star gave his first press conference after announcing the move. He left very clear that he won’t come back to play in Europe, despite having ‘opportunities’ to do so.
Ronaldo, who will be 38 years old in February, is starting this new stage of his career after a disappointing season for Manchester United, in which he barely could play and ended up estranged from his teammates and coach Erik Ten Hag.
The woes accompanied his national team at Qatar 2022, in which he was benched and Portugal lost to Morocco in the quarterfinals. All this baggage seemed to have motivated him to move to a ‘strange’ league in Saudi Arabia, but Ronaldo assures he made the decision to “be happy.” Check out all his declarations.
Cristiano Ronaldo says he refused offers to play in Europe
“In Europe my work is done, I won everything. I played in the most important clubs in Europe and for me it’s now a new challenge,” Ronaldo said at the press conference. He also revealed that the move wasn’t because he didn’t have offers, but because he wanted to.
“I can say now that [there were] many opportunities [to play] in Europe, many clubs in Brazil, in Australia, US and even in Portugal, many clubs tried to sign me but I gave my word to this club,” he confessed.
He added, “Many people speak and give their opinion but they really know nothing about football. To be honest, I really don’t worry about what people say. I made my decision.” His goal is “simple. I’m coming here to win, to enjoy. What I want to do is to enjoy and to smile.”
When asked about the terms of the contract, for which he will become the highest-paid player with a salary of $214 million per year, he simply said: “I’m a unique player. I beat all the records there [Europe] so I want to beat a few records here. This contract is unique because I’m a unique player as well.”
