Ronaldo and Cruzeiro surprised the country with the first announcement by a multinational businessman interested in investing in a big club in Brazil, after the approval of the Law of the Anonymous Society of Football (SAF).
The novelty is that the new legislation makes Brazilians, previously interested in acquiring clubs in Europe, to understand that it is possible to be successful right here. In 2018, Ronaldo LuÃs Nazário de Lima bought Valladolid, from Spain. At the same time, banker Ricardo Guimarães negotiated to buy Vitória de Guimarães, in Portugal.
Portugal seemed to him more profitable than Brazil. The extraordinary news involving Ronaldo and Cruzeiro is that this money will remain inside the country.
The surprise came because Cruzeiro is seen as a bankrupt club and because it was imagined that a businessman from the Middle East or England would come. It turns out that Ronaldo’s business career makes him a phenomenon, a nickname from his playing days.
Unlike many of his colleagues, he invested in a variety of economic activities, was a partner at Fort Lauderdale in the United States and currently holds 73% of the shares in Valladolid.
The club in the autonomous region of Castile and León has not been an example of sporting success since its purchase by the Brazilian businessman. Nor of failure. Valladolid finished 16th in the 2018/19 season, the first and incomplete season after the acquisition was announced. He was ranked 13th the following year and ended up relegated in 2020/21, penultimate place in the Spanish League.
In summary, the life of Ronaldo’s Valladolid is exactly the same as the club’s trajectory in its 93 years: ups and downs. After the descent, Ronaldo spoke up and said that he intends to return as soon as possible. It is fifth in the Second Division.
Spain forced all its clubs with red balance sheets to become public limited liability companies (SAD) in 1994. Only Barcelona, ​​Real Madrid, Athletic Bilbao and Osasuna got rid of the obligation. Since then, Real have won seven Champions League and Barcelona have won four. They are membership clubs, not companies.
Atlético de Madrid have not won any Champions and spent two seasons in the Second Division in these 27 seasons. Turning a company does not produce a miracle. Atlético improved when they did their job more seriously. It is the current champion.
The differences between Valladolid and Cruzeiro are the miners’ ambition for titles and the promise to return them to their place. It won’t be simple.
But the purchase is relatively cheap. It will be R$ 400 million, which must be invested in the social club, and ten years to pay the debt of R$ 1 billion. In euros, it’s 155 million. It’s less than Paris Saint-Germain paid for Neymar.
In 2003, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea for €140 million. It was a bargain too, because he bought it downtown.
Abramovich wanted to make Chelsea as powerful as Real Madrid and won two Champions Leagues in less than two decades. Ronaldo did not promise to change the history of Valladolid, but announced that he wanted to make Cruzeiro return to its place.
Historically, the Cruise is a winner and seller. Certainly, the Phenomenon will remember that the club it now acquires traded it with PSV Eindhoven for $6 million. Discovering players and then selling them abroad can be part of the financial return strategy and no one will be able to accuse the entrepreneur of doing differently than Cruzeiro did.
The good sign is that there are people with money thinking that it is worth investing in football in Brazil.
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