Everything to Know About Cristiano Ronaldo's €100M Transfer to Juventus
Cristiano Ronaldo shook the world after confirming that he is leaving Real Madrid for Italian Serie A club, Juventus. According to reports, the deal is worth around €100 million and will span for four years.
Meanwhile, the reported net annual salary of Ronaldo will be around €30 million. Extra bonuses and incentives are not included in this calculation, which means that his yearly salary is most likely to exceed the stipulated amount.
This brings the new gross salary of Ronaldo to €54 million, which is lower than the estimated €56 million he would make if he stayed with Real Madrid. Ronaldo's expected salary remains lower than that of Lionel Messi's €71.5 million and Neymar's €62 million.
However, it’s worth noting that Ronaldo’s endorsement earnings far exceeds the two players’. Ronaldo earns around €40 million off the field from media appearances, endorsements, and licenses.
He’s also expected to earn another €75 million in the upcoming season, which is enough to make him the second highest-paid football player.
Ronaldo’s exit out of the Santiago Bernabeu marks the end of his spectacular run at the Spanish capital.
Having achieved numerous feats such as becoming the club’s all-time leading scorer, winning four out of the five Ballon d’Or awards, and leading Real to win four Champions League titles is enough to call him one of the greatest Real Madrid players.
Juventus is the biggest and most popular club in Italy. However, its reputation is no match compared to Real Madrid who ranks second in Forbes’ world’s most valuable football teams ranking.
Manchester is ranked first; then Real takes second spot with €3.4 billion. This is a long way from Juventus' €1.1 billion value. Real also earns €570 million in revenues while Juventus only gets an annual revenue of €340 million.
There are numerous reasons as to why the transfer has happened. However, one of the biggest factors is said to be due to a dispute between Real president Florentino Perez and Ronaldo.
Reports stated that Ronaldo had fallen out of favor due to his lower salary compared to rivals Messi and Neymar. Forbes’ listed Floyd Mayweather as the highest paid athlete, who is then succeeded by Messi at the second spot and Ronaldo at the third.
According to reports, Real Madrid issued a statement saying that the club listened to the request of Ronaldo, and in the process, agreed to release and transfer him to Juventus.
Now that Real’s biggest star is out of the Bernabeu, it makes sense for Real president Florentino Perez to search for a replacement. The objectives, said reports, are Paris Saint-Germain strikers, Neymar and Mbappe.
However, it’s unclear as to whether these two PSG stars will be released by the French club knowing that they’re highly depended upon in the field. Another reported substitute prospect is the Serbian Milinkovic-Savic.
The 23-year-old midfielder had reportedly been offered €155 million by Los Blancos.
Why the transfer happened
The game of football isn’t just a sport. It’s also a huge business ran by magnates. Because of this, it makes perfect sense for Real Madrid to sell Ronaldo especially that he’s at the peak of his career.
Age is also a huge factor in this decision knowing that the forward is turning 34-years-old. Also, Real will make €10 million in profits from the exits. What makes things even better is that the profit is drawn from just nine years of Ronaldo play.
It's the perfect time for the Spanish giants to sell their star.
Perez had also carefully analyzed the situation as he forecasted that they could save around €30 million in annual wages if they set Ronaldo free. This would then enable them to freshen up their squad.
Unfortunately, Ronaldo had just passed his peak and only three or four years remain for his top-level games. This is perhaps the biggest disadvantage that Juventus will get out of the deal.
But then again, that’s not much of a big deal knowing that the Portuguese had proved numerous times how age isn’t a factor to him. Take for example his successful campaigns in England and Spain where he led Manchester United and Real Madrid to Premier League and La Liga domination multiple times.
Juventus dominated the Serie A this season, but they still feel the lack of a solid striker despite Paulo Dybala and Gonzalo Higuain being in the forward roles.
Meanwhile, Ronaldo setting his foot out of Bernabeu would mean a negative blow to Los Blancos. Real Madrid winning 13 European Cups made them in some way arrogant into believing that they can achieve those feats without the Portuguese.
This is even though they depended heavily on Ronaldo's skills almost every time they dealt with crucial games.
In this case, it's going to be a fresh new squad for Julen Lopetegui. Losing a valuable star like Ronaldo would mean giving more importance to Marco Asencio and Isco, as well as searching for an ideal replacement.
That replacement could then be Neymar, knowing that he’s had a series of game issues with his mates at Paris.
And if ever they fail to get Neymar on board, then it could be Chelsea's Eden Hazard who might be the new man in white.
Chelsea suffered in the Premier League this year, and no player wants to be in that situation. Considering Hazard’s skills in the midfield, it makes sense for Lopetegui to have him together with Isco and Luca Modric.
Sergio Ramos, the captain of Real Madrid, said in an interview that Cristiano Ronaldo has a special place in the club’s history, despite his move to Juventus.
He stated that Ronaldo brought four Champions League titles to Real, which is enough to call him as one of the best players to have played the sport. Unfortunately, the turbulent relationship he has with Real president Florentino Perez sure had a big factor to his decision to move out.
Then again, there’s no hard feeling between Ronaldo and Ramos due to their friendship and professional attitude towards the game. This is also the likely reaction of the rest of the team towards Ronaldo’s move to Serie A.
Ramos expressed his good wishes and appreciation for Ronaldo's victories and contributions to the success of Real Madrid through a post on his Instagram account, with him wishing the best of luck in his future endeavors.
What to expect
Juventus is one of Italy’s most dominant in the football realm, with 7 straight Serie A wins, as well as 4 consecutive league and cup doubles.
Apart from being dominant in Italy, they are a force to reckon with in the whole of Europe, despite not winning in the Champions League since 1995/1996 season. On the bright side, they did manage to reach not just one, but two finals in the past 5 years.
Ronaldo has previously been seen as a threat by the team, and things predictably are going to take a better turn this time around, which 450 goals out of 438 appearances, with 44 in 44 in the past season. This leaves a huge gap to be filled by Team Madrid.
Getting a new Galactico is a difficult thing to do. Despite that, the decision by the president to let such a good player go isn’t one that’s poorly thought of. Real Madrid is sure to make a lot of financial adjustments the moment Ronaldo leaves.
The recently-installed manager, Julen Lopetequi was already told of there having five new players, but none of them qualify as a Galactico.
The planned attack of Real Madrid would be on Naymar, Marco Asensio, and Cristiano himself, but the current team of Naymar is determined to not let them go.
It would be interesting to see, however, how things would go once they start talking about money, but PSG appears to be stiff on Neymar not leaving the team.
Ronaldo’s team have also had rumors about coming in contact with Kylian Mbappe, as well as Eden Hazard, apart from heavily-rumored Neymar.
Balaque says, however, that even the two players would be hard to get. Kane’s contract with Spurs would be the major holdover, and Lewandowski, who wants to leave his Munich team is stuck as the team does not want to release him either.
All of these good players not able to hop onto the team are making the finding of Ronaldo's replacement much, much harder.
Gareth Bale on taking a solo path
There were initial plans of transforming Gareth Bale into Galactico, where, should he be made part of the team, he would eventually grow.
Bale is known to find difficulty in playing time with Zinedine Zidane, but him leaving the team will do good for him to the point of having conversations getting delayed.
They will be taking place once Bale has had final talks with Lopetegui, which have already begun even before the start of the season.
From there, it will be clear as to what Real Madrid’s lineup will be, but for sure, Asensio and Bale will be there, as they are both competitive and could greatly and positively contribute to the team.
Anyone who’d fill Ronaldo’s spot would have to keep in mind that it’s going to be a tall order to do so, as Ronaldo was the type who deals with tough moments in an extraordinary manner.
More on Rolando’s money matters
The new gross salary of Ronaldo is going to be €64 million, which is €2 million less than how much he would have been earning if he decided to stay with Real Madrid.
It still is, however, far less than what both Messi and Neymar earn, with the former earning €84 million for gross pay, and the latter €73 million. These gross earnings come as a result of a new deal that was made final last year.
Despite not ranking high in the list of the highest-paid athletes, he still earns massively through other means like product and brand endorsements. As a matter of fact, he is one of the highest-earning for such among soccer layers.
He earns $47 million from endorsements, licensing, and advertisements, and he is expected to earn $97.5 for the upcoming season, which puts him in 2nd place on the list of highest-paid soccer players.
He’s had a good run at the Bernabeu, where his early beginnings and his climb to success all began, winning 4 out of five Ballon d’Or awards and 4 Champions League titles for the Real Madrid team.
All these moves associated with money caused a rift between Florentino Perez and Ronaldo with the new contract causing him to not have as much money as Neymar or Lionel Messi, salary-wise.
According to Forbes, however, Ronaldo still managed to place third in the overall list of highest-paid athletes, only behind Messi and Floyd Mayweather.
Further, according to Real Madrid, they wish to say that the wish was indeed, listened to, and they agree with his plan of jumping ship.
Making more money
Ronaldo indeed, earns so much money from so many sources, thanks to him being one of the most dominant personalities in the world of sports.
This is exemplified by his number of followers across popular social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, at 300 million, with his Facebook page having 122 million fans, much more than any person on the planet.
His sponsors allowed him to rake $474 million in value in just one year through social media. He also managed to make $216 million, value wise for Adidas on social media, all because of his posts of him sporting the logo prominently on his jersey.
He is currently on a $10 million deal negotiation with Facebook in the creation of a docu-series.
Before his transfer, he has also stricken great deals with the Italian Blood Volunteering Association. They also have an agreement with Abbott for a worldwide campaign where his image would be used to promote donating of blood.
Search for replacement continues
While Ronaldo has yet to leave fully, the club president for Real Madrid is already shopping around for great prospects to replace Ronaldo, one which would appeal to fans of the football team.
Two of these that stand out are Mbappe and Neymar, but PSG is unwilling to let them go and look elsewhere. Milikovic-Savic of Serbia may be a good bet as he is a young, break-through player.
It would be difficult to compete against other clubs for him, however, as he is attracting the interest of these clubs.
Madrid is rumored to attempt a 155 million euro deal just to get him on the team, as they want to do their very best to compensate for such a wide gap caused by Ronaldo’s departure.
Mateja Kezman serves as the young man's agent, who used to be a player for Atletico Madrid. He dined with President Lotito to talk about the offer by Madrid, given that they know that they would be losing him eventually.
Juventus is also expected to make an offer, as well as for the player to be the one to say he’s leaving for 100 million euros, and possibly more, with Juventus willing to pay 120 m for that to happen.
When everything’s over
Madrid is sure going to miss how great of a player Ronaldo is, though the club can sure look arrogant, given that the 13 cups they have won as a team were won, mostly because of him.
Furthermore, they can go on to reinvest in other players such as Asensio and Isco. Because of how good of a player he is on the pitch, Neymar is deemed by the team's president to be the best replacement for someone who has contributed so much.
It remains unclear, however, if a deal for such a move will take place soon, especially given that it would take a year before a release cause is issued. It’s also nice to note that another thing that could happen is to do a stop-gap signing, where Eden Hazard of Chelsea would be the main prospect instead.