Ronaldo's lewd gesture another sign for world-class pair to stay away from Saudi

01 March 2024 , 07:30

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Cristiano Ronaldo was handed a one-match ban for causing offence with his reaction to opposition taunts and it is probably the biggest news coming out of the Saudi Pro League recently (Image: Getty Images)

As punishments for misdemeanours in Saudi Arabia go, it was very much on the side of lenient.

Cristiano Ronaldo, of Al-Nassr, was banned from one football match and fined 10,000 riyals (£2,108) for making a lewd gesture at the end of his side’s 3-2 win against Al Shabab on Sunday. He also has to pay 20,000 riyals (£4,216) to cover Al Shabab’s legal costs.

But considering Muhammed al Ghamdi, a retired teacher, was recently given a death sentence for some tweets that riled the authorities, Ronnie has got off lightly. The ethics committee - don’t laugh - that punished Ronaldo unsurprisingly gave him no right of appeal but having done this sort of thing previously, he would have been unlikely to do so anyway.

In case you were wondering, the offending gesture apparently involves a hand in front of the pelvis and was in response to opposition fans chanting Lionel Messi’s name. It is all a bit laughable but is still an embarrassment to the Saudi Pro League (SPL) because the 39-year-old remains their poster player.

And while Ronaldo remains the poster player, why would any elite footballer still in his prime want to go to Saudi? Apart from the money, of course. Yet still we hear the Saudis are going to try and recruit Mohamed Salah and/or Kevin de Bruyne, possibly in the next transfer window.

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Saudi club, Al-Ittihad, was ready to give Mohamed Salah £1.25million a week for three years but the Liverpool star was not interested and will laugh off new bids (Liverpool FC via Getty Images)

As both Salah and De Bruyne have contracts that are due to expire in the summer of 2025, the Saudi pursuers are reported to be a little bullish about their chances of landing one or the other, or even both. They should not be.

Salah turns 32 in early June and De Bruyne will be 33 later that month. They may have had recent fitness issues but both remain in truly world-class form. If you were to argue that De Bruyne and Salah are the two best players in the Premier League, you would not be laughed out of town, and both will surely have at least three or four years as gold-standard players.

Granted, the cash you would be talking is silly. It was suggested Al-Ittihad were prepared to pay Salah £1.25million a WEEK for three years. No doubt, the same figures will be bandied about when one PIF-funded Saudi club or another comes in for Salah again, along with De Bruyne.

Kevin de Bruyne still has plenty of points to prove in the Premier League as he looks to be recognised as one of the greatest - if not THE greatest - in the competition's history (Getty Images)

But when they see a preening Ronaldo still being the only show in town, when they see Jordan Henderson getting out pretty damn quickly, when they see that 14 of the 18 clubs have average attendances below 10,000, when they see the playing standard, these two geniuses are not going to sell their legacy to Saudi while they can still run amok in the Premier League and - when Liverpool return to it next season - the Champions League.

This week, the vice-chair of the Saudi Pro League Saad Al Lazeez was speaking to the Financial Times’ Business of Football Summit and said: “We are pleased with what has been achieved so far. In fact, I think we are a bit ahead of schedule.”

Yep, only if ‘ahead of schedule’ means having a competition that no-one outside Saudi - and very few inside Saudi - watch, and that is only making headlines because Ronaldo is behaving like a brat. And that is why Liverpool and Manchester City fans can be confident their treasured assets will not end up in Saudi this summer.

Andy Dunn