Cristiano Ronaldo has ruled out the chance of him giving football management a crack post-retirement, as the attacking sensation, formerly of Real Madrid and Manchester United, has suggested he doesn’t have ‘passions for this generation’.
The 212-cap, 132-goal Portugal international, now 39 years of age, entered the twilight period of his career when switching to Middle East-based Al-Nassr in January 2023 – and how long he has left plying his trade remains up in the air.
A five-time Ballon d’Or winner, Madeira-born Ronaldo will turn the ripe old age of 40 in February but – amid ambitions to play alongside his 14-year-old son, Cristiano Jr – he has no plans to hang up his boots after recently notching the 900th goal of his career.
‘I don’t have passions for this generation’
The veteran forward, who remains the highest-paid player in world football, spoke to his former teammate, Rio Ferdinand, on the defender-turned-pundit’s YouTube channel and suggested that it would be ‘difficult’ for him to be on the other side of the white line.
Thanks to the ever-growing popularity of social media – most notably, TikTok and Instagram – Ronaldo has insisted that young players no longer admire the older generation and the advice they have to offer.
“For me, it will be difficult one day to be a coach, because I don’t have passions for this generation, it’s difficult especially in football, because they don’t take advice by our experience. They think they know everything, they think the phones will give you good education, the TikTok, the Instagram.”
Ronaldo – Senior Club Career Statistics | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Club | Games | Goals | Assists | Yellow/Red Cards |
Real Madrid | 438 | 450 | 131 | 54/6 |
Manchester United | 346 | 145 | 64 | 50/4 |
Juventus | 134 | 101 | 22 | 13/1 |
Al-Nassr | 68 | 62 | 17 | 9/1 |
Sporting CP | 31 | 5 | 6 | 1/0 |
Adding to that, the former Los Blancos and Red Devils gem claimed to Ferdinand that he has other aspects of his life to be worried about after he eventually calls time on his career, while he also suggested that he’s willing to venture out into new walks of life.
“I have other things to worry about, another chapter of my life that is a business part that I’m excited about. It will be a challenge to me and learn other areas I don’t know, be more involved in my business and I think will be good.”
The Portuguese Star’s Business Ventures
Ronaldo will remain busy upon retirement
As mentioned, given the superstardom nature of the Sporting CP graduate, Ronaldo has a plethora of other business ventures in his repertoire that will, no doubt, keep him busy in post-retirement life, including a recently started YouTube channel.
Being one of the most recognisable figures in all of sport, Ronaldo is lucky enough to land endorsement deals with some of the leading brands in the world over the years – Armani, TAG Heuer, Herbalife, Binance and Castrol included.
He also owns a fashion boutique, in Madeira and Lisbon, under the name ‘CR7’ and he also owns a range of hotels, called Pestana CR7, in an array of cities from all corners of the globe, including New York, Marrakech and Madrid.
Most recently, the Al-Nassr man launched his record-breaking YouTube channel, which became the fastest channel to hit 1 million subscribers as it took just 90 minutes to do so. His channel now sits at north of 60 million subscribers with his series of videos reaching just shy of 500,000 million views collectively.