Cristiano Ronaldo: Chief of Saudi Arabia's football federation wants superstar to join league
The president of Saudi Arabia’s Football Federation “would love to see” Cristiano Ronaldo play in the Saudi League, according to The Athletic.
The 37-year-old told Manchester United - his current club - in June this year that he wants to leave.
Yasser al Misehal’s comments come after Ronaldo refused a €242m offer for a two-year contract from the Saudi Pro League club Al-Hilal, according to CNN Portugal.
The offer would have translated to a €2m per week and would have represented the most expensive football transfer of all time. Currently, Neymar’s €222m transfer from Barcelona to Paris Saint Germaine in 2017 is the highest.
Ronaldo called the offer “obscene”.
“We would love to see a player like Cristiano Ronaldo playing in the Saudi league,” al Misehal told The Athletic.
“I like Cristiano Ronaldo as a player and I would like to see him play in Saudi Arabia, but that won’t happen before January unfortunately,” said the president, adding that Al-Hilal’s transfer window is closed for now.
“I’m sure it would be a very expensive deal of course, but we can see our clubs getting higher revenues in the past couple of years. We have already seen some big players who used to play in the Premier League come to the Saudi league.”
Ronaldo reportedly also refused an offer from Al-Nassr, another top Saudi club. There was interest in Ronaldo from Chelsea FC, Atletico Madrid and SSC Napoli, but no offers have materialised yet.
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