Cristiano Ronaldo is officially one of the highest paid players in football history. The Real Madrid talisman, now 31 years old, recently agreed a new 5-year contract with the Madrid giants worth an astounding £150 million ($187 million). This contract will keep him at the club till he is 36.
The sheer size of the deal has caused considerable concern for Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, who is understandably alarmed at the player contract sizes in La Liga and the English Premier League.
Rummenigge was recently in conversation with Sport Bild in Germany, where he said that the Bundesliga in comparison to England and Spain simply cannot compete with such high wages.
“Real Madrid has just extended three contracts: Ronaldo is to earn 20.5 million [euros] net—a player does not get that in gross in the Bundesliga! There is a business model behind it: they do not want their players to be recruited from England,” Rummenigge said.
The Madrid club has recently extended the contracts of their best players, namely Gareth Bale, Toni Kroos and Cristiano Ronaldo and the size of their contracts have caused a lot of eyebrows to be raised.
Ronaldo has also signed a new contract with Sportswear brand Nike and that is a lifetime contract, worth in itself, an unbelievable 1 billion pounds. This and the Real Madrid contract which reportedly makes him rake in 500,000 pounds a week along with bonuses and incentives, will make the Portuguese star football’s first billionaire according to The Sun.
A spokesperson for Nike told SunSport: "The successful partnership between Nike and Cristiano Ronaldo will continue well into the future with a new, long-term contract.
"Ronaldo is having yet another incredible year, for both club and country, and is unquestionably an icon of the game. He transcends football and is the most popular athlete on social media and the most famous athlete in the world."
Meanwhile, Ronaldo was relatively coy about this saying he doesn’t know when he’ll stop playing. “I don’t know the future.” said Ronaldo "I know this is my penultimate contract. After that, I don’t know. I don’t know at what age I’ll stop."
His lifetime contract with Nike is the company’s first with a footballer.
Ronaldo has an ever expanding business empire as well which include two hotels, CR7 blankets, an underwear brand, shampoo and facial fitness devices, to name a few. The Portuguese superstar, who is in contention to pick up FIFA’s World Best Player award this year, has been in stellar form this season again and has scored seven goals in 12 games in La Liga and the UEFA Champions League.
It is certainly worrying for Europe’s other leagues that players are getting paid so highly and they are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with such business models and payment structures. Bayern President Rummenigge is one of many who find this an issue within football as the game continues to be marketed all across the globe, but for the Portuguese International Cristiano Ronaldo, it’s a deal of a lifetime.
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