Soccer star Ronaldo poised to end his boycott of Saudi Pro League
Saudi team owners and soccer fans are waiting breathlessly to discover whether reports are correct that Cristiano Ronaldo will end his two-match boycott this coming weekend amid disputes with his Al-Nassr football club and league officials.
The Riyadh team’s star Portuguese captain, who is paid $235 million a year, plans to return for Al-Nassr’s Feb. 14 match against Al-Fateh, ESPN reports.
Ronaldo’s grievances revolve around the role of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in team affairs and comparisons with rival clubs’ transfer activity, according to the sports broadcaster.
In a statement last week, the Saudi Pro League said that any problems Ronaldo and other players have must be resolved with their individual teams.
“Decisions on recruitment, spending and strategy sit with those clubs, within a financial framework designed to ensure sustainability and competitive balance,” the league said.
Ronaldo has played 22 games this season, scoring 18 goals and providing three assists as Al-Nassr sits in second in the Saudi Pro League, one point behind leader Al-Hilal.
Cristiano Ronaldo sits out Saudi match amid reported PIF dispute
Soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo appears to have sat out of a Saudi Pro League match in protest over a disagreement with the Public Investment Fund.
Ronaldo, who plays for the Al Nassr Football Club, skipped Monday night’s game against Al Riyadh, which his team won 1-0.
The Portuguese forward, who signed for Al Nassr in 2023, has become enmeshed in the kingdom’s global image, acting as a brand ambassador for tourism and sports ventures.
He is also building his own Saudi business empire, from hair loss clinics and real estate to his stake in Al Nassr.
Ronaldo reportedly became frustrated after Al Nassr failed to sign any new star players, while leading competitor Al Hilal, which is also backed by the PIF, signed France’s Karim Benzema from Al Ittihad.
Ronaldo joins billionaires league with new Saudi soccer contract
Capping his 23-year career by playing in Saudi Arabia has made Cristiano Ronaldo soccer’s first billionaire.
The Portuguese superstar’s fortune was pegged at $1.4 billion in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which took note of the two-year contract he signed in June with Riyadh’s Al-Nassr team, worth a reported $400 million in tax-free salary and bonuses.
Ronaldo, 40, the all-time top scorer in men’s international soccer, played for some of Europe’s leading clubs before moving to Saudi Arabia, including Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus. He is captain of both Al-Nassr and Portugal’s national team.
Off the field, Ronaldo signed a decade-long deal with Nike in 2016 for nearly $18 million annually and endorsed brands including Armani and Castrol that have added over $175 million to his net worth, Bloomberg reports.
With 660 million followers around the world making him the world’s most popular personality on Instagram, Ronaldo has put much of his fortune to work at home.
He has invested heavily in Portuguese media and publishing interests, as well as in branding, real estate and his CR7 business empire that extends into hotels, apparel, and licensing, the news agency reports.
Saudi soccer signals change, selling team to U.S. investor group
For the first time, a Saudi soccer team has been acquired by a foreign investor.
The Saudi Pro League’s Al-Kholood club was bought by the Harburg Group, a business founded by American private equity investor Ben Harburg, for an undisclosed price.
The sale to a foreign group represents a change in Saudi Arabia, which has invested heavily in European soccer and spent hundreds of millions of dollars poaching foreign players, including Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo.
The kingdom’s Ministry of Sport announced two other soccer team acquisitions on Thursday: The Al-Zulfi club was sold to Riyadh-based Nojoom AlSalam Co. and Medina-based Al-Ansar was acquired by Awdah Al Biladi and his Sons Contracting Ltd.
Saudi PIF invests in surging soccer realm with Kings League
Having disrupted the athletic world with billions poured into golf, tennis, mixed martial arts and esports, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is diving deeper into soccer.
SURJ Sports, an investment arm of the sovereign wealth fund, signed an agreement on Tuesday to form a joint venture with the upstart Kings League.
The move brings a wildly popular new brand of football to the kingdom that features seven players on each side of the field.
An inaugural event is planned for November, which will be streamed on a range of platforms including TikTok and YouTube. The league has close to 30 million social media followers.
Kings League was founded in 2022 by former Barcelona defender Gerard Piqué and has a growing young audience drawn by its fast-paced format.
Most of the league’s revenue comes from sponsorship and merchandising, rather than broadcasting, which fuels traditional football teams that play with 11 to a side.
“Our priority today is to maximize reach and get in front of as many fans as possible,” Kings League CEO Djamel Agaoua tells Bloomberg.
“In the future, as the product matures, we want to develop our media rights revenue stream, and we might consider more exclusive deals with broadcasters and streaming platforms,” he said.
Saudi Arabia wins nod to host soccer’s World Cup in 2034
Saudi Arabia has 10 years to prepare for its stint as the epicenter of global sports when the kingdom hosts soccer’s 2034 World Cup.
Gathered in an online meeting on Wednesday convened by governing body FIFA, representatives of 200 national soccer federations gave their approval to Saudi Arabia, which was uncontested in its bid for hosting the world’s most-watched sporting event, the Associated Press reports.
“We look forward to hosting an exceptional and unprecedented edition of the FIFA World Cup by harnessing our strengths and capabilities to bring joy to football fans around the world,” Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said in a statement.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund plans to spend tens of billions of dollars on projects related to the World Cup, including one of the stadiums built 350 meters above the ground in NEOM. Another stadium named for the Crown Prince will be atop a cliff in Riyadh’s Qiddiya sports and entertainment development.
Much like Qatar’s experience hosting the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Saudi Arabia will be subject to intense scrutiny of its human rights record, including the treatment of women and migrant workers.
Qatar World Cup draws thousands of Israelis, direct flights or not
Israel has no diplomatic ties with Qatar, and its national soccer team didn’t qualify for the 2022 World Cup. That won’t stop thousands of Israel fans from pouring into the oil-rich Gulf state this week to join the frenzied crowds at the most-watched sporting event on earth.
It wasn’t until 10 days before the opening match between Qatar and Ecuador, set for Nov. 20, that world soccer’s ruling body, known as FIFA, worked out a plan for direct flights between Israel and Qatar that satisfied political and security leaders in both countries. By then, most Israelis with tickets to the nearly monthlong tournament had booked flights with layovers in third countries.
While Israelis are barred by statute from entry into Qatar, the country agreed to honor Israeli passports as a condition for the highly sought rights to host the World Cup. Still, many Israelis, generally known for their boisterous character, say they’ll try to keep things low-key at the games.
“The vibe is to go and enjoy the football and not try to stand out or anything,” Elon Grubman, a 32-year-old Israeli born in Brazil, told The Circuit.
When FIFA finally announced the agreement for direct charter flights on Nov. 10, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid hailed the move as “great news for football fans and for all Israelis,” adding that it was the result of “hard work over the course of many months.” Israel will also be allowed to open a temporary consular office to assist fans with lost passports and medical emergencies.
In expressing his “delight” at solving the visa problem, FIFA President Gianni Infantino also announced that the deal meant “Israelis and Palestinians will be able to fly together and enjoy football together.” Given the tight security protocols that Israel has practiced for decades in restricting Palestinian travelers through Ben Gurion International Airport, it’s unclear whether such joint flights will materialize. Like the Israelis, though, most Palestinians didn’t wait to book their flights.
Walid Jouda, a resident of the Gaza Strip, was standing in line yesterday afternoon at the heavily guarded southern border of the coastal enclave, waiting for permission to enter Egypt and fly to Doha through Cairo.
“I’m a football addict so seeing the matches live in Qatar is going to be amazing,” said Jouda, 35, an information technology administrator for a United Nations agency in Gaza City, who is rooting for Argentina. “Maybe one day Palestine will qualify for the World Cup, but that’s still a dream.”
Though Israel and Qatar have never established full diplomatic ties, they have worked together publicly for more than two decades. In the late 1990s, Israel operated a trade liaison office in Doha until tensions between Israelis and Palestinians led Qatar to shut it down. Israel allows Qatari officials to travel through its territory and enter the Gaza Strip, where they have for years mediated between Israel and Hamas, the militant Islamist group that governs the territory.
Tickets to the matches and accommodation in Qatar or neighboring countries don’t come cheap. Matan Peled, a manager at Israel’s ISSTA travel agency, said three-night packages that include two soccer matches were selling for $2,000 to $3,500 a person, depending on the hotel. One advantage to Qatar’s small size, he said, is the close proximity of all the new stadiums that were built for the World Cup.
“It’s like having eight stadiums in Tel Aviv,” Peled told The Circuit. “All the teams are in the same area, all the fan zones are close to one another.”
With no Israeli team in the tournament, 42-year-old Ronen Rotem said he doesn’t care much who wins. “I’ve never been to a football match in my life,” he said. “I’m only going because it’s a unique opportunity to visit Qatar.”
Abraham Accords Games to spotlight soccer diplomacy at Dubai Expo
This article first appeared on Jewish Insider.
As Expo 2020 Dubai comes to a close at the end of March, the United Arab Emirates will host a soccer match between teams from the Abraham Accords’ signatory countries, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides announced on Wednesday.
Players from Israel, Morocco, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates will face off in Dubai in the inaugural “Abraham Accords Games,” an effort being spearheaded by Nides and the UAE’s ambassador to Israel, Mohamed Al Khaja. The event will also feature a “dinner celebration” with chefs from each country.
“I fundamentally believe that travel, tourism [and] culture is the way to cement, in people’s psyche, the importance of these Abraham Accords,” Nides told reporters in a virtual press conference on Wednesday.
Since arriving in Israel in December, Nides has emerged as one of the most vocal proponents of the Abraham Accords — the 2020 pact that normalized ties between Israel, the UAE, Morocco, Bahrain and Sudan — within President Joe Biden’s administration.
The event will take place on March 29, and the delegations from each country will also visit the others’ booths at the Expo. The culture ministers from each of the four countries will be in attendance. After the event, they will sign a “cultural cooperation declaration” with the goal of “fomenting and just continuing to advance the idea that cultural cooperation is the key to success to the Abraham Accords,” said Nides.
With the event taking place in an international hub like Dubai, Nides said he hopes the event will show other countries the benefit of joining the Abraham Accords.
“It just shows what happens when there’s cooperation,” he explained. “Obviously, the more people understand each other, the more ability there is to work together, not only on playing football or eating food, but how do we do economic ties? How do we do energy ties? How do we do security ties? How do we do cooperation?”
Sudan, which was a signatory to the Abraham Accords in 2020 but has been absent from most of the resulting cooperation, will not participate in the Abraham Accords Games. Sudan “is going through some complications with leadership,” said Nides, referring to a military coup that rocked the country last year, but “our hope is that we’ll all be doing all these events together.”
The Abraham Accords Games is the first major event in a cross-cultural approach Nides is taking to advancing the Abraham Accords and showing their potential to other countries in the region. “I’m hoping that Israel plans to do something this summer for a month of different activities in the cultures of all the countries,” Nides said, explaining his vision for a “whole month of concerts and plays and arts. There’s just a massive amount of stuff that people don’t know about each one of these countries.”
Nides urged policymakers and practitioners in the Abraham Accords countries to “get in the mindset of kids” by working with “influencers, pop stars [and] cultural icons,” which he said he has a plan to do.
