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)

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Sto­ry by JAMES ROB­SON | The As­so­ci­at­ed Press