After weeks of speculation, Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo on Friday joined Saudi Arabian club Al Nassr in a deal that is believed to be worth over 200 million euros (Rs 17,75,23,68,226).
Ronaldo’s Instagram post about joining the Saudi club garnered more than 29 million likes from the seven continents of the world— Africa, South America, North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Antarctica.
Hours after Al Nassr announced Ronaldo’s signing, the Instagram following of the club tripled and is still going strong. Al Nassr had roughly 860K followers before the big transfer. As of 4 pm IST on Sunday, Al Nassr’s Instagram following had risen to 5.5 million and it is expected to only grow bigger in the days to come.
Fans flock to stores to buy Ronaldo’s shirt
A few hours after the announcement of the Saudi Al Nassr club’s contract with Cristiano Ronaldo, the club’s stores witnessed a great crowd to get the player’s shirts, which ran out of shelves before midday on, Saturday.
According to the Arabic daily Al-Eqtisadiah, the Al Nassr store in Riyadh sold more than 5,000 shirts bearing the player’s name and number 7 for Saudi Riyals (SAR) 300, the price of the shirt, in addition to SAR 115 for writing the number and name Ronaldo on the T-shirts brought by fans.
The newspaper indicated that the returns after all the shirts were exhausted from the club’s store, amounted to about SAR 2 million.
The Saudi club has not yet released the 37-year-old player’s shirts, but the fans have begun to print his name and his distinctive number 7 on the club’s shirts.
The team’s yellow home shirts of all sizes were sold out, and the reserve shirts were also running out, forcing fans to bring their own; to print Ronaldo’s name on it, a process that could take two days, due to the “unprecedented demand”.
“This is more than history in the making. This is a signing that will not only inspire our club to achieve even greater success but inspire our league, our nation, and future generations, boys and girls to be the best version of themselves,” Al Nassr said.
Ronaldo was pictured on the Al Nassr Instagram’s post holding a blue and yellow shirt with his favoured number seven printed on the back.
Cristiano Ronaldo expressed his enthusiasm for playing with the Saudi club Al-Nassr, and experiencing a football league in a new country, after his official move to Al-Nassr Saudi Arabia.
Ronaldo said, in statements published by Al Nassr Club on Twitter, on Saturday evening, “I am eager to experience a new league in a different country.”
37-year-old Portuguese international indicated his admiration for the vision of Al-Nassr management, which he described as inspiring, saying, “I am excited to join my teammates, so that together we can help the team achieve more successes.”
The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Al-Nassr Club, Musli Al Muammar, took to Twitter and wrote, “I am very happy that the greatest player in the history of football has joined Al-Nassr Club and the Saudi League.”
“Our contract with Ronaldo is not aimed at winning a match or championship, but rather beyond that: transferring great experiences, high professionalism, and inspiring a generation that is passionate about sports. I invite you to enjoy one of the chapters of the tremendous development in the Kingdom of Glory,” Musli Al Muammar tweeted.
Ronaldo’s career began in Sporting Lisbon, after which he played for Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus, before returning to United for a second term, and then heading to the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
With Portugal, Ronaldo won the European Cup 2016 and the European Nations League 2019, and he also won five European Champions League titles, including 4 with Spanish Real Madrid, and is the historical top scorer in the continental championship.
