The Story of Cristiano Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro is the youngest of 4 siblings, he was born on the 5th of February 1985 in madeira, Portugal, after a failed abortion, as his mother revealed on her book, "I wanted to abort but the doctor didn't support my decision" she would drink warm ale and run until she dropped, without achieving her aim. His family was very poor, his mother changed different jobs as a cleaner and cook, while his father worked first as a gardener and then as a kitman, he was also suffering from an alcoholic addiction that ultimately led to his death in 2005. They lived in a small shack and Cristiano shared his bedroom with his three brothers, they were so poor that once her sister was bitten by a rat inside the house and every time they didn't know where the next meal would come from, but Ronaldo immediately showed interest and passion for football, so much that he would bring the ball everywhere he went, he was named chorao, the crybaby, as he would get very frustrated when other children were unable to compete with him.

His talent was so overwhelming that one of the major clubs in madeira signed him when he was only 10 years old, in this team Cristiano grew a lot as a player playing with kids 3 years older, he made himself a name so much that he attracted the attention of several teams, but in the end, he chose his mother's favorite team, sporting cp, and, at 12 he moved there alone to pursue his dream. This was a tough period for Ronaldo as he still lived in a shack, but he continued to spend his days on the pitch field practicing, and anyway the financial situation at this point was still bad, so much that he and his teammates had the habit of going to local McDonald’s and ask for leftover hamburgers.

But his life was about to change forever, on the 6th of august 2003, on the occasion of the inauguration of the new stadium, his team organized a match against Manchester united, and they ended up winning the match, which marked the beginning of a new journey for both Cristiano and Manchester united. The players said they had to wait centuries while sir Ferguson tried to convince Ronaldo to move to his club, and so it was, two days later the phenomenon flew to Manchester and signed the contract, this transfer cost around 20 million dollars, the most expensive for a teenager at that time. In his new adventure he chose number 7 which motivated him even more because he felt the pressure on himself and his debut was incredible, he was confident he took actions and managed the game, and every time he had the ball the spectators became elated and in the end of the season, he was named player of the year.

In 2005 Ronaldo faced one of the darkest moments of his life following the death of his father, who unfortunately didn't see everything that his son would have achieved in the following years, but this made Cristiano even stronger and more motivated, the player improved day after day winning several titles with his club leading it to conquer the champions league in 2008 and winning his first golden ball in the same year, the first ever player to conquer the trophy wearing Manchester United’s uniform. So, a teenager moves to a club and makes his fans dream winning several titles including the much-coveted champions league, but as always, all good things come to an end and the end between Cristiano Ronaldo and Manchester united came in the 2009-2010 season, when there were rumors of a possible transfer of the player to real Madrid, and so it was a choice made despite sir Ferguson trying to convince him to move to Barcelona instead of real Madrid.

This movement caused a mix of emotions to united fans, he had been the team's main players for years and made his supporters forget about Beckham for a second. Ronaldo moved to real Madrid opening a new chapter for his career, the transfer fee of 80 million euros to join real Madrid also made another world record since it's still in the top 10 most expensive taxes ever paid and the contract brought the player 20 million euros a year until 2015. at the presentation in the Bernabe stadium the star was welcomed by 80 000 fans, Ronaldo called it a dream come true by saying it has always been his goal to play for real Madrid one day and that nothing would bring him more joy than serving real Madrid. during his time of 9 years in real Madrid he peaked in his performances, scoring a total of 450 goals in 438 games, 105 of which only in champions league, another record for the Portuguese champion. in his time in Madrid he also won the golden ball four times, not to mention the four champions league titles and the two victories in la Liga, after these adventures in Spain he took a decision no one expected, in fact he moved to Turin to play for Juventus, the greatest Italian football club and that decision came probably after his greatest goal scored right against Juventus in champions league, in Turin he scored a total of 101 goals and won 2 Scudetto, 2 Italian Super Cup and 1 Coppa Italia, after 3 seasons wearing the Juventus uniform he moved back to Manchester united where he still is playing.

His career brought him a lot of fame and with that amount of fame money arrived quickly, poverty was no longer a problem for the family of Ronaldo from the day he signed with Manchester united, the boy once poor was now making more money in a single game than how many he had seen his family throughout life. So far Cristiano has earned an approximately 1 billion dollars, and last year, if you add up all its sources of income, it reaches 120 million dollars earned. But clearly, all this money doesn't come only from his football career, so let's dive deeper to analyze his income sources, well fame and being famous pays and pays well, Ronaldo is much more popular on social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, than his rivals like Lionel Messi or Neymar, but nonetheless how does this mean more money?

The extraordinarily huge following of the fans means that the sponsors really want to sign contracts with him, when you post something on Instagram you are probably getting a couple of dozens likes or maybe a few hundreds, well Ronaldo earned about one and a half million dollars per each sponsored post on Instagram, only in the year 2020. In fact, it's not wrong to say that sponsorships constitute an important slice of the income earned by the star, companies are willing to pay competitive prices to make Ronaldo the face of their company, this is the reason why Ronaldo also supports Herbalife even if it has nothing to do with football, a rough estimate of Ronaldo's income reveals that about 40 percent of his income was made only through sponsorships last year.

While brands like Nike can carry big gains, agreements with other smaller companies also generate significant money for him. Sponsorship agreements include companies such as Clear Shampoo, Dazn, an Egyptian company of steel and many others, so Cristiano makes a lot of money playing football and also with sponsorships on social media, but that's all? Of course not, Nike has signed a contract with him that no other players have, I'm talking about a contract for life between them, and try to guess how much it's worth, the answer is a billion dollars, yes, you heard that right; the deal has the potential to continue even after the retirement of Cristiano from football, the only person to have an agreement similar with Nike is the legendary Michael Jordan. Ronaldo also puts a lot of money into his own businesses which helps him to earn even more cash, the star owns his own line of luxury underwear, footwear and even mobile applications, his empire also includes restaurants and hotels, as well as a creative agency and fans in general don't worry about paying good money for products that are managed by the star himself, Ronaldo really understood the importance of diversifying his income sources.

In short Ronaldo's incomes come from things that go far beyond the football field, money earned playing football is not even comparable to passive income earned from side businesses, this means that Cristiano will make a lot of money even after his retirement, thanks to his financial intelligence and his already advanced companies. The football player and entrepreneur also officially own the cr7 brand, the company started simply by selling underwear but it is now expanding quickly to include more products, today it offers a full line of clothes for men and boys, with this company he made a big investment in the Pastina Hotel club and the group Pastina currently has five hotels in operation. In the most recent list, Forbes named him third highest paid sportsman in the world, with 115 million dollars, behind only Lebron James and Messi, who earned about 130 million dollars instead. But besides all the money Cristiano earned and will earn in the future, he has never said what he will do with it, but we know for sure that the star has some really expensive hobbies, much of his wealth has gone into real estate with the Portuguese star owning properties all around the globe, Ronaldo owns several homes, the first one in Madrid in the neighborhood of La Finca, he also has bought a three-bedroom apartment in the Trump Tower, in Manhattan, beyond three homes in Portugal, one in Turin and another stunning one in La Costa del Sol.

But Cristiano does not only own expensive properties, he's also a fan of luxury watches and supercars, he really loves cars, in fact he owns 20 of them, including two Rolls-Royce, three Ferraris, several Mercedes-Benz, Lamborghinis, Bentley and many more, this actually reminds me of a piece from an interview quite funny where he nodded no to the question if his father owned a car. Cristiano is not the kind of person who's easily satisfied, he also owns an incredible 20 million dollars private jet ag-200, the autonomy of the jet allows him to travel about 6300 kilometers with four passengers on board, the star also donated 1 million euros for hospitals in Portugal and has made considerable humanitarian efforts to help the people of Gaza by building schools.