Cristiano Ronaldo’s extensive business portfolio explored | OneFootball

Cristiano Ronaldo has amassed a huge amount of wealth from his playing career, but his business ventures continue to expand.

The Manchester United legend has played for some of the biggest clubs in the world and generated huge income wherever he has travelled to. However, at 38 years old, even Cristiano will need to think about his post-retirement plans.

There is probably no immediate need however, as the Portuguese national team’s all-time leading scorer is raking in a reported £173m-per-year in the Saudi Pro League whilst representing Al-Nassr.

Nonetheless, a recent article by The Daily Mail has gone into detail about the impressive business empire the former United number seven has built to date.

Cristiano’s most recent investment was in the Portuguese media company- Cofina. The media giant includes, Correio da Manha, the country’s most circulated newspaper.

Other recognised media platforms that come under the Cofina umbrella are, the sports paper Daily Record, the business paper Jornal de Negocios and the television channel cmTV.

The Al-Nassr striker was one of eleven investors in the company and is credited with now owning around 20-30% of the total shares.

Fascinatingly, the five-time Ballon d’Or winner has had an incredibly rocky history with the media company in which he is now a significant shareholder in.

It is claimed that CR7 has sued Cofina on 11 different occasions. The legendary striker took Cofina to court over alleged privacy violations following a story about the birth of his eldest son.

Moreover, back in 2014, when talking about the newspaper, Correio da Manha, Ronaldo boldly claimed that “I have no respect for that newspaper because it is constantly inventing news, inventing controversies, inventing a bad relationship, a bad atmosphere in the national team”.

If that wasn’t enough bad blood, Cristiano also took exception to the TV channel which he now partly owns. During the Euro 2016 tournament, the striker was so enraged by a question from one of the channel’s reporters, that he threw their microphone into a lake.

We all must be wondering if the reporter in question still works there and what he is thinking.

However, the bad feeling between the player and media outlet must be water under the bridge, not only through his investment but the star also sent €1,250 to every employee to express gratitude to all those “who sweat their shirts every day for it”.

It must be stated that this is not Cristiano’s first venture into the media world. He took majority ownership of the digital agency Thing Pink in 2017, with the company quickly rebranded to 7EGEND.

The company also looks after Ronaldo’s platform CR7 Fitness Crunch, which claims to “link sport, fitness and health”, supporting his own chain of gyms. Sporting giants Porto and Valencia, are also both clients of the company.

The Portuguese’s portfolio is not only media, but also in the tourism sector. Ronaldo went into business with the Madeira based Pestana Group in 2015.

The leisure group went into a 50/50 partnership to open hotels under the CR7 brand. The hotels are currently located in five global locations, Funchal (Cristiano’s hometown), Lisbon, New York, Madrid and Marrakech. There are also plans for a sixth hotel to open in Paris in 2027.

The Man United legend additionally possesses an extensive property collection which includes a seven-storey apartment in Funchal, a villa in Turin, a mansion in Madrid valued at just under £5m and a stunning holiday home in Marbella.

Ronaldo’s wide-ranging CR7 brand also includes “CR7 Eyewear, CR7 Footwear, CR7 Underwear and CR7 Fragrances”. The all-time leading scorer in international football boasts the impressive fact of being one of only 3 athletes to possess a life-long contract with American sportswear titans, Nike.

Not everything is plain sailing for the Portuguese star though, as his Insparya Medical Clinic which deals in hair transplants is apparently in hot water with the Spanish tax authorities.

The company is said to have “issued several invoices without VAT to hundreds of clients between 2019 and 2021”. The clinic argue that alopecia is a disease and therefore medical services of diagnosis, prevention, treatment and cure are exempt from VAT. No doubt the case will rumble on.

What is clear is, Cristiano is set for life and will surely only continue to cast his business net in the future, especially once he has stopped banging in the goals for Al-Nassr and Portugal. Just like on the pitch, who knows what the Portuguese star is capable of achieving.