IN PHOTOS | Cristiano Ronaldo in Saudi; latest to end career in soccer outpost
Ronaldo’s arrival on a two-and-a-half-year contract, reportedly earning him up to $200 million-a-year, is expected to heap unprecedented attention on Al Nassr and the Saudi Pro League.
Ronaldo’s arrival on a two-and-a-half-year contract, reportedly earning him up to $200 million-a-year, is expected to heap unprecedented attention on Al Nassr and the Saudi Pro League. (Photo | AP)
It will be fascinating to see if Ronaldo’s fame will see interest in Saudi soccer sustained beyond his first weeks in the country. (Photo | AP)
Cristiano Ronaldo attends a press conference for his official unveiling as a new member of Al Nassr soccer club in in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (Photo | AP)
Cristiano Ronaldo smiles during his official unveiling as a new member of Al Nassr soccer club in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (Photo | AP)
Cristiano Ronaldo, warms up during his first training after the official unveiling as a new member of Al Nassr soccer club in in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (Photo | AP)
Ronaldo said he was driven by the challenge of a new league, but also changing the impression of Saudi soccer around the world. (Photo | AP)
Cristiano Ronaldo is not the first soccer superstar to head off to one of the world’s supposed minor leagues in the latter years of his career. (Photo | AP)
Others, like Pelé, Johan Cruyff, Zico, Xavi Hernandez, and now the 37-year-old Ronaldo at Saudi Arabian club Al Nassr, find themselves prolonging their careers at unlikely soccer outposts usually for vast amounts of money. (Photo | AP)
Pelé, the Brazil great and owner of an unprecedented three World Cup winners' medals, signed for the New York Cosmos in 1975 after being wooed by the team for four years. It was a move that changed U.S. sports history. (Photo | AP)
Qatar's Al-Sadd player Xavi Hernandez wasn’t the first star player to land in Qatar’s top league but he might have had the most prominence, given he arrived midway through 2015 — at age 35 — on the back of being the Barcelona captain who lifted the Champions League trophy weeks earlier. (Photo | AP)
Zico is almost as fondly remembered in Japan as he is in his native Brazil. After two highly successful spells at Flamengo, either side of two years at Udinese in Italy, the playmaker quit his playing career, only to come out of retirement at the age of 38 to help usher Japanese soccer into professionalism. (Photo | AP)
Alessandro Del Piero, the majestic Italy World Cup-winning forward, is comfortably the biggest name to have played in Australian soccer after his two years with Sydney FC (2012-14) on what was described by the club as the “largest professional sporting contract in Australian history” -- a reported $2 million a season. (Photo | AP)
