Do we like Cristiano Ronaldo?
Our score: 5 out of 10. No harmful words about LGBTQ+ people turned up, but an admitted tax fraud, a contested 2009 allegation and open warmth for Trump and the Saudi money leave it in the middle.
The latest chapter is the farewell. At 41, Ronaldo played his sixth World Cup and went out on 6 July when Portugal lost 1-0 to Spain in Arlington, Texas. He had three shots in that match, said it was his last World Cup, and told reporters “I leave with a clear conscience”.
The money story is the tax one. Spanish prosecutors said he hid image-rights income from 2011 to 2014 through offshore companies. His agents first denied it, but in January 2019 he admitted tax fraud in a Madrid court and agreed to an €18.8 million fine plus a 23-month suspended jail term. That's a real stain, though it was a money case, not a case about hurting a person.
The ugly allegation is the 2009 Las Vegas one. A Nevada lawsuit in 2018 alleged he raped a woman in a hotel, and he put out a statement saying he “firmly deny the accusations” and that it was a media spectacle. His side maintained the encounter was consensual and that a 2010 confidentiality agreement was valid. A judge threw the suit out in June 2022 as a sanction over leaked documents, and an appeals court upheld that in November 2023, so no court ever ruled on what happened. Make of that what you will.
On the harm check, I found nothing from Ronaldo himself about trans or gay people, and nothing on vaccines or climate. The flags are the company and the paycheck. Amnesty urged him in 2023 to use his platform on human rights when he joined a Saudi club, and he told Piers Morgan that Trump is “one of the guys who can help to change the world”. He then visited the White House the same day Trump hosted the Saudi Crown Prince, and Keith Olbermann attacked him for it on X.
The good stuff is where I have to be straight with you. There are plenty of charity stories about him, but a lot of them come from fan blogs and one famous Nepal donation was reportedly denied by the charity, so I won't vouch for a figure. What I can source is a long, hard-working career, and his coach praising him as a role model at the end of it. That's the honest list.
So where does that leave a family that wants to like someone without a nasty surprise? He's not a culture-war warrior, and nothing in what he's said puts him against us. But the tax fraud, an unresolved allegation he denies, and the Trump and Saudi closeness mean he's a fan of the footy, not a hero of the cause. Cheer the goals, skip the merch.