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Sunday, July 20, 2025

Where will Ronaldo go after leaving Manchester United? 

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970 days ago
20221123
Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal's national soccer team arrives at Hamad International airport in Doha, Qatar, Friday, Nov. 18, 2022 ahead of the upcoming World Cup. Portugal will play the first match in the World Cup against Ghana on Nov. 23. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal's national soccer team arrives at Hamad International airport in Doha, Qatar, Friday, Nov. 18, 2022 ahead of the upcoming World Cup. Portugal will play the first match in the World Cup against Ghana on Nov. 23. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Cris­tiano Ronal­do has left Man­ches­ter Unit­ed with im­me­di­ate ef­fect. Where will he turn up next?

The Por­tu­gal star has put him­self on the mar­ket with his ex­plo­sive pre-World Cup in­ter­view that led to the ter­mi­na­tion of his con­tract on Tues­day.

As a free agent, the 37-year-old for­ward now has the chance to im­press po­ten­tial suit­ors and prove he can still per­form on the high­est lev­el for his coun­try in Qatar.

His fu­ture may well de­pend on it af­ter fail­ing to se­cure a trans­fer to a Cham­pi­ons League club in the sum­mer.

Mid­way through the sea­son, his op­tions look even more lim­it­ed if he is set on play­ing in the knock­out stages of Eu­ro­pean club soc­cer’s top com­pe­ti­tion when he re­turns from the World Cup.

The Cham­pi­ons League is now down to the last 16 teams, with on­ly a tiny num­ber of those able to come close to of­fer­ing Ronal­do any­thing like the re­port­ed 500,000 pounds (594,000 dol­lars) a week salary he earned at Unit­ed. And there has been lit­tle ev­i­dence that they would be in­ter­est­ed in sign­ing him.

Ronal­do’s in­ter­view with Piers Mor­gan, in which he crit­i­cized Unit­ed man­ag­er Erik ten Hag and the club’s own­ers, made it clear he still be­lieves he is one of the top soc­cer play­ers on the plan­et. But where in the world will his ca­reer take him next?

 

A CHAM­PI­ONS LEAGUE CLUB

 

There are on­ly 16 to choose from if Ronal­do har­bors am­bi­tions of play­ing in the com­pe­ti­tion when it re­sumes in Feb­ru­ary. Then it is a ques­tion of who would could af­ford him.

A dream sce­nario would be to have one last fling with a tru­ly elite club. But per­haps his best chance of that would be as a short-term fix un­til the end of the sea­son.

Re­al Madrid strik­er Karim Ben­ze­ma has been ruled out of the World Cup with in­jury and so has Bay­ern Mu­nich’s Sa­dio Mane.

Per­haps Ronal­do would be an at­trac­tive emer­gency op­tion if ei­ther of those clubs feared be­ing left short in the sec­ond half of the cam­paign.

 

A PRE­MIER LEAGUE CLUB

 

Chelsea con­sid­ered a move in the sum­mer, but that nev­er ma­te­ri­al­ized.

Ronal­do would not ap­pear to fit in with the long-term plan­ning of new man­ag­er Gra­ham Pot­ter, who is al­ready hav­ing to deal with one age­ing strik­er in Pierre-Em­er­ick Aubameyang.

Ar­se­nal fan Piers Mor­gan is push­ing for a move to his club, but the Pre­mier League leader has in­vest­ed in build­ing a young team un­der man­ag­er Mikel Arte­ta and Ronal­do would be a de­par­ture from that.

Could Sau­di-backed New­cas­tle be tempt­ed to make a first tru­ly state­ment sign­ing un­der its new own­er­ship?

 

A RE­TURN HOME

 

To fin­ish his ca­reer where it start­ed at Sport­ing Lis­bon would pro­vide a ro­man­tic book­end for Ronal­do, while the Por­tuguese club could pro­vide him with a route back to the Cham­pi­ons League next sea­son.

He would have to take a con­sid­er­able pay cut if he were to take up this op­tion.

 

SAU­DI ARA­BIA

 

The on­ly se­ri­ous in­ter­est in Ronal­do in the sum­mer came from Sau­di Ara­bia. While a move there would like­ly present the most lu­cra­tive op­tion for him, it would be a marked step down in terms of his re­main­ing sport­ing am­bi­tion.

It would de­ny him the chance to fur­ther ex­tend his record as the all-time lead­ing scor­er in the Cham­pi­ons League, with 140 goals, and hand his great ri­val Li­onel Mes­si, who has 129, the chance to over­take him.

 

MLS

 

Per­haps it is time to take his brand to the Unit­ed States and be­come the biggest star ever to play in MLS.

He could not hope to match his salary and he would have to ac­cept his days play­ing in the Cham­pi­ons League are over.

But for a man who has more than half a bil­lion fol­low­ers on In­sta­gram this would be the chance to move to the biggest mar­ket in the world off the field - and a new ad­ven­ture. —DO­HA, Qatar (AP)

___

Sto­ry by JAMES ROB­SON | The As­so­ci­at­ed Press

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