Cristiano Ronaldo is arguably the best human to ever play football in the history of mankind. Though millions of people will disagree, he is the most tested and trusted footballer the world has ever seen.
In the last 18 years, the Portuguese international has been a professional footballer who did not pitch his tent at one club like his career rival, Lionel Messi who has spent 15 years of his professional career at Barcelona.
In the case of Cristiano Ronaldo, he is among the very few players who have played in some of the biggest leagues and some of the most historic clubs in Europe – from Sporting Lisbon in Portugal to Manchester United in England, then to Real Madrid in Spain, and now at Juventus in Italy. The interesting part of Ronaldo’s career so far is that there is no club he has played for that he has not won a trophy.
Besides what the teams he has played with give him the opportunity to win in his career, his personal contribution to the teams are always mind-blowing. No wonder he recently set a record as the first footballer that has scored at least 50 goals in three major leagues in Europe – Premier League (118 goals in 292 appearances in all competitions), Spanish La Liga (451 goals in 438 in all competitions), and in Italian Serie A (as at July 24, 2020, he has scored 58 goals in 82 appearances in all competitions).
Ronaldo’s impact in every team he has played for has earned him five Ballon d’Or, FIFA’s Player of the Year award and other numerous accolades. He is currently the all-time leading goal scorer in the UEFA Champions League.
Beyond that, his effort in the game has made him one of the richest footballer in the world. In fact, his wealth has grown so much that he is not just compared with footballers alone but with athletes in other sports.
Cristiano Ronaldo wages and his Weekly Salary?
Just as highlighted above, Cristiano Ronaldo has been a very impactful player from the Portuguese national team to every club he has played for. Hence, he earns as much as he works in the three major clubs he starred in.
During his 9 years reign at Real Madrid, Ronaldo was earning about $50 million per year as basic salary. He had to take a per cut to join Juventus in 2018. The Portuguese international said he had to take the decision because he needed a new challenge.
Since he arrived at Turin in Italy, Ronaldo has been earning €30 million per year – 34 million in dollars and 26 million in pounds. This has made him the best-paid player in Italian Serie A. And this payment will continue until 2022 when his current contract with the club will expire. By then, Ronaldo who is currently 35-year-old would have been 37-year-old. Before then, he would have earned €120 million from his salary alone.
The break down of Cristiano Ronaldo’s annual salary implies that he earns €57.10 per minute, €3,424 per hour, €82,191 per day, €576,923 per week and €2.5 million per month just from Juventus, excluding match bonuses and special appearance fees.
This also implies that he is one of the highest-earning footballers in Europe, alongside Paris Saint-Germain’s Neymar, £537,000-per-week after tax, and his career rival Barcelona’s Lionel Messi £500,000-per-week after tax.
Cristiano Ronaldo Net Worth
In 2019, American famous magazine, Forbes, suggested that Cristiano Ronaldo is the second-highest-paid footballer in the world behind his arch-rival, Lionel Messi. According to to the ranking, Ronaldo earned $109 million that year, 84 million in pounds.
However, in 2020, despite the coronavirus pandemic that forced Ronaldo to accept a $20 million pay-cut from Juventus, and his earning was reduced to $46 million, Forbes ranked Ronaldo as the highest-paid footballer in the world and second highest-paid athlete in the world behind Tennis icon Roger Federer.
Forbes added that Cristiano Ronaldo has earned a total of $105 million from May 2019 to May 2020. According to the publication, he earned $60 million from basic salary and $45 million from Endorsements. This is before he accepted $20 million pay-cut from Juventus. While Messi is said to have earned $104 million during the same period.
From the salary, Cristiano Ronaldo earns per year as a footballer to the money he earns from Endorsement deals, and the revenues he generates from his numerous private investments, the net worth of the Portuguese football icon can be projected to be at least, $500 million, 392.58 million in pounds.
Cristiano Ronaldo and His deals
As one of the best footballers in the world who works very hard every day to maintain his status as a king in the sport, Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the most sought after when it comes to a personality that will boost the image of a brand.
Hence, the Portuguese international has numerous sponsorship and/or endorsement deals with different companies, organisations and brands. In fact, aside from his massive salary, Forbes says Ronaldo earns a whopping $45 million between May 2019 and May 2020 from Endorsements alone.
Ronaldo makes this huge amount of money yearly from Nike, Armani, Tag Heuer, Egyptian steel, Herbalife, Italia Independent, PokerStars, Castrol, Electronic Arts, DAZN, MTG, Unilever and Altice.
It is not all the deals that Ronaldo entered that is about money. For instance, he is heavily involved with the likes of UNICEF, Save the Children, AIDS Still Required and World Vision as part of his charity efforts.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s lifetime contract with Nike
Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the few privileged athletes in the world that have a lifetime contract with an international brand as big as Nike. In fact, apart from Lionel Messi who has a lifetime contract with Addidas, no active footballer has such a privilege.
Ronaldo signed his lifetime contract with Nike in 2016 while still at Real Madrid. There are reports that the said contract worth $1 billion. This means that Ronaldo will keep earning from the sportswear making company years after he retires from football.
According to Hookit, Nike benefitted $474 million in 2016 from Cristiano Ronaldo’s social media presence alone. Based on this estimate, it means that Nike has earned a whopping $2.37 billion between 2016 and 2020 from Ronaldo’s social media presence.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s investments and Property
Though Cristiano Ronaldo is heavily making money as a footballer, the 35-year-old Juventus star is not carried away by that. He is still making efforts to secure his earning through investments.
The Portuguese international is in partnership with one of the biggest hotel groups in Portugal, Pestana Lifestyle Hotels company. He and the hotel group partnered to establish two 5-star hotels, one in the capital city of the country, Lisbon, and one in Funchal, his hometown on the island of Madeira. The two hotels are named Pestana CR7 hotel.
Besides that, Ronaldo owns his clothing line in partnership with Nike, the clothing line is known as CR7. He also owns a couple of gyms in Madrid, Spain, in partnership with US health company Crunch; the fitness outfit is known as CR7 Fitness.
More so, Ronaldo started a hair transplant clinic in Spain called Insparya and owns a fragrance line named CR7fragrance. His country, Portugal, built a museum in honour of his effort in football, named Museu CR7.
Besides all those investments, Ronaldo has heavily invested in luxury cars and fancy mansion in every country he has stayed especially in Spain and Italy. Reports say his mansion in Madrid is worth $5 million. While his 8-bedroom mansion in Turin, which has a private garden, indoor pool and gym and is accessible by a private road, worth a bit higher than that.
Based on research, Ronaldo is a proud owner of 3-bedroom apartment in the Trump Tower in New York, worth $18.5 million. He reportedly purchased the apartment in 2015.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s Private Jet – Gulfstream G650, is said to be one of the fastest brands in the world. It can fly as fast as 610 miles per hour. It is said to be worth £50 million.
Just like how he loves to score goals, Cristiano Ronaldo is a lover of luxurious cars. The Portuguese international owns Bugatti Veyron, which costs about $2 million, a Bugatti Chiron which cost $4.7 million, a Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4, a Rolls Royce Phantom, an Aston Martin DB9, a Bentley Continental GTC, a Cayenne Turbo 911 Carrera 2S Cabriolet, an Audi Q7, Audi R8, and an Audi RS6.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s social media handle?
Beyond earnings from salaries and Endorsement deals, Ronaldo is the most followed human being on earth on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. As at last check, the Juventus star has at least 231 million Instagram followers, at least 86.5 million Twitter followers and over 130 million likes on his Facebook page.
Altogether, Ronaldo has over 447 million social media followers, a record that has never been set by any human being. As such, any sponsored post he shared via Instagram alone, he makes about $400,000.
Cristiano Ronaldo is the first active footballer to become a billionaire
In May 2020, Forbes magazine published that Cristiano Ronaldo has become the first active footballer to have made $1 billion. This means that in 18 years of professional football, Ronaldo has earned that much from salary and endorsements.
That makes Ronaldo one of the three athletes in history to ever make over a $1 billion during their sporting career. The first athlete to have ever achieved this is Basketball icon, Micheal Jordan, followed by American boxer, Floyd Mayweather.
This implies that from 2002 to 2020, Cristiano Ronaldo has made over $650 million in salary, while he made the remaining $350 million of his career $1 billion via endorsement deals.
However, this does not imply that Ronaldo is a billionaire, it means that he has been paid such amount of money in the last 18 years of his career.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s tax Evasion scandal
Despite how humble, hardworking and focus Ronaldo has been, he has experienced a series of scandals in his life. The biggest of them is the tax fraud scandal he encountered in Spain.
The fraud scandal was reported in 2018, the year he left Real Madrid for Juventus. Spanish government accused the Portuguese international that he evaded $14.7 million euros in taxes.
The case was taken to a court in Spain and after days of the court hearing, Ronaldo was found guilty and he was reportedly sentenced to two years imprisonment. However, before the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, reports emerged that Ronaldo and his legal team have reached an agreement with the Spanish government to pay €8.8 million fine. Hence, after paying the fine, the two years jail term was reportedly waved aside.
Early Life and career of Cristiano Ronaldo
Cristiano Ronaldo was born on 5 February 1985 in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, to a modest family of José Dinis Aveiro and Maria Dolores. His late father José Dinis Aveiro was a gardener and his mother who just survived cancer was a cook. Ronaldo grew up in a single room apartment amid three older siblings.
Though he was the youngest child of the family, that never stops him from striving as hard as possible to change the family’s fortune. That led him to discover that he is a gifted footballer; Sporting CP scouted and brought him to the club when he was 12-year-old.
As he was thriving in his football career, he was struggling academically. After a couple of expulsion from school, he decided to quit formal education and focus on football.
That decision paid off as Sporting CP gave him his first professional football contract when he was 16-year-old. At 17, he was good enough to play for the club’s senior team. Before he turned 18, his performance was so good that the then Arsenal’s manager Arsene Wenger, Manchester United’s Alex Ferguson began to show interest in Ronaldo.
Eventually, Ronaldo decided to join Manchester United instead of Arsenal in 2003 for a transfer-fee of £12.24 million. However, the world began to take note of Ronaldo in 2007 when he helped Manchester United to win the Premier League.
Ronaldo continued with such awesome performance in 2007-2008 season and then 2008-2009 season, winning the Premier League in those three seasons consecutively. He also helped the club to win the UEFA Champions League in 2008 and FIFA Club World Cup in the same year.
His performance was too much to be ignored, hence, Ronaldo won his first FIFA Ballon d’Or in 2008. Real Madrid could not overlook Ronaldo’s performance at United, hence they had to bring him to Spain in 2009 for a then world-record transfer fee of €94 million.
Cristiano Ronaldo ended up spending 9 solid years with the Spanish La Liga giants. In those glorious years, he won 15 major titles for the club, including 4 UEFA Champions League, 2 La Liga titles and 3 FIFA Club World Cup. He also won another four Ballon d’Or for himself during those years.
Though he was already ageing, in football terms, Ronaldo’s hunger to achieve more was still burning. Hence, he decided to attempt a new challenge. He accepted a pay-cut to join Juventus for a transfer fee worth €100 million prior to the 2018-2019 season.
In his first season at the club, Ronaldo helped Juventus to win the Italian Serie A title and Coppa Italia. He is also at the verge of helping the club to win another Serie A title in the outgoing 2019-2020 season.
Ronaldo has also done so well for his country as he has helped Portugal to win European UEFA European Championship in 2016 and the first edition of UEFA Nations League, 2018-2019 season.
Cristiano Ronaldo, his lover Georgina Rodríguez and his four Children
Aside from football and business, another thing that gives Cristiano Ronaldo so much joy is his family. Though he is not officially married, he has been in a very serious relationship with Spanish model Georgina Rodríguez since 2016.
The 26-year-old- model gave birth to her first child with Ronaldo on 12 November 2017 in Spain. They named her Alana Martina.
Before she started dating Ronaldo, the Spanish model who was born on 27 January 1994 served as a waitress in Spain before she moved to Bristol, England. Georgina Rodríguez and Ronaldo met in a luxury shop where she was serving as a shop assistant. The former Real Madrid star fell in love with her and they have been living together from Spain to Juventus.
Due to her relationship with Ronaldo, Georgina Rodríguez now has a whopping 19.4 million Instagram followers where she usually post her glamorous pictures and her erotic yoga exercises.
Other Cristiano Ronaldo’s children
Asides Georgina Rodríguez’s daughter, Ronaldo has three other children. His first child was born on 17 June 2010 in the United States via surrogacy. He is named Cristiano Jr. On 8 June 2017, Ronaldo’s twin boy and girl were born via surrogacy again in the United States. They are named Eva and Mateo.
Since their births, the identity of the woman/women that carried them for 9 months have not been known as the footballer had signed an agreement with her/them which gave him total custody of the children.
