Wrestling in Riyadh - Cristiano Ronaldo

Over the course of the last transfer window, the great football caravan advanced across the desert toward Riyadh. List all the players who have gone and FIFA and UEFA mandarins shake their heads ruefully! The 2023 summer transfer window saw many of the best players in the world such as Neymar, Karim Benzema, Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Aymeric Laporte all move to clubs in Saudi Arabia for lucrative offers.

Also packing their shorts and sunglasses for Saudi were Allan Saint-Maximin, Riyad Mahrez, Jordan Henderson, Fabinho, Ronaldo, Ngolo Kante, Edouard Mendy, Ruben Neves, Alessandra Mitrovic, Demarai Gray, Alex Telles, Jota, Kalibou Koulibaly, Marcelo Brozovic, Georginio Wijnaldum, Sergej Milinkovic-Slavic, Seko Fofana, Franck Kessie, Malcom, Moussa Dembele, Jack Hendry, Yannick Carrasco, Gabri Veiga, Grzegorz Krychowiak, Merih Demiral, Fashion Sakala, Yassine Bounou and Otavio.

And more than 80 per cent of that bonanza was splashed out by just four clubs: Al Hilal, Al Ahli, Al Nassr and Al Ittihad. Those are the four Saudi Pro League clubs owned by the Public Investment Fund – who also own Newcastle.

And don’t down play this – it’s nothing short of a catastrophe for world football. The sums involved are truly staggering! Ronaldo’s weekly pay is $4.43million.

How do you watch the Saudi league in the civilized world? The best you have is X. Not CBS, not ESPN, not NBC certainly not the BBC or Sky. So Ronaldo has consigned himself to obscurity. And within 18 months he will retire from football. Why bother when you can nestle down on comfy pillows stuffed with petrodollars. Apart from now he’s talking about a wrestling match. It’s grotesque. Ronaldo is trying single handedly to discredit the game we love by staging a shameful parody. Remember when he was at United? Subbed off he stormed down the tunnel. Subbed on late he refused to take the field. Trips to Mallorca and Vegas. He has no respect for his manager, no respect for the fans, no respect for himself. A wrestling match! Who does he think he is Dennis Rodman? Go to North Korea, Christiano, please go! And stay there. This is what keepfootballbeautiful.com is against! We commend the good and condemn the bad in today’s game.

But it’s just not a fair fight! As we saw with the rise of Manchester City, Arsenal and now Newcastle sovereign wealth trumps the budgets of the rest the of the world.

The stars of world football have been bought off. And what’s the point? For a year or two they will be turning out in a no-name league that nobody is watching before retiring prematurely on a huge pile of money!

And what is the Arab record on human rights? The Qataris buried a bunch of Bangla Deshi laborers in the World Cup concrete. A gay man was sentenced to 500 lashes by a Saudi ’Court’. Women there are drudges and concubines!

I’m afraid that the footballing world just hasn’t woken up to the magnitude of the calamity. And don’t you think that they won’t be back in January. Laying down their dirty money and pillaging the best players from our game. The numbers will just be even more astronomical.

Meanwhile Ronaldo will bare his chest for the baying hordes. Someone should have a word! Tell him no-one is bigger than the game. And certainly not that petulant, self-absorbed has-been turned wrestler extraordinaire!