 "Al-Nassr want Cristiano Ronaldo to stay for another season. Image: Reuters")
Portuguese legend Cristiano Ronaldo ’s stint in the Saudi Pro League is not going as planned despite him scoring a lot of goals. His team, Al-Nassr, has already lost the chance to win the league title as they are languishing at fourth place, and on top of that, they also got eliminated from the semi-final of the Asian Champions League. The Riyadh-based side is now unlikely to participate in any international tournament next season.
In 2022, Ronaldo was bought by Al-Nassr for a lot of money with the primary goal of winning titles. However, the 40-year-old has so far failed to deliver on the expectations. Despite this, there are reports suggesting that the Saudi club is preparing a lucrative contract to keep Ronaldo for at least one year. His current contract with the Saudi club is set to expire in July.
Al-Nassr preparing lucrative deal for Ronaldo?
According to Marca, Al-Nassr are putting together a 12-month contract valued at (Rs 1,700 crore) £155million a year. If the deal goes through, Ronaldo will earn (Rs 34 crore) £2.98m a week, or (Rs 4 crore) £425,000 a day.
The Marca report claims that the Saudi Pro League side is very keen on retaining Ronaldo and is even willing to offer him a 5 percent share. However, all these are just speculations at the moment because nothing official has come either from Ronaldo or the club.
Ronaldo gets Club World Cup offer?
Meanwhile, there are also reports that Moroccan club Wydad Casablanca has approached Ronaldo with an offer to join before the FIFA Club World Cup.
A source close to Wydad Casablanca told Reuters they want to sign Ronaldo to lead their attack in the Club World Cup. However, the source downplayed the development, saying that it was just a friendly talk between the club president and an agent close to Ronaldo.
“It was just a friendly talk between Wydad’s president and an agent close to Ronaldo, without going beyond informal discussions,” a source was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Ronaldo has scored close to 100 goals for Al-Nassr since moving there from Manchester United in early 2023. Ronaldo had a bitter exit from his former club, where he spent the initial years of his career.
He came back to the Premier League after an illustrious stint with Real Madrid and a short time with Juventus. But because of some issues with the then-United manager Erik ten Hag, Ronaldo went to Saudi Arabia, in what was said to be the biggest deal in football history.