Cristiano Ronaldo, a complicated relationship with the U.S. and the spectre of the 2026 World Cup

Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal are out of another major tournament. Since winning the European Championship in 2016 — Ronaldo’s only major international trophy — his nation have exited in the round of 16 against Uruguay at the 2018 World Cup and Belgium at Euro 2020, then suffered quarter-final defeats by Morocco at the 2022 World Cup and France at this summer’s European Championship.

In more recent tournaments, his influence and powers have further diminished. Ronaldo has 130 goals in 212 appearances for Portugal, but he has never scored in a knockout round of a World Cup and his only ‘goals’ at Euro 2024 came during penalty shootouts, despite starting every game. In Qatar in 2022, he scored once; an in-game penalty. Ronaldo is now 39 — he turns 40 in February — but already discussions in Portugal have moved towards whether he may seek one more shot at international glory at the World Cup in 2026, which will be hosted across Canada, the United States and Mexico.

After Portugal were knocked out of Euro 2024, Ronaldo hinted on social media there may yet be a further tournament, with a World Cup still eluding him. He wrote: “We wanted more. We deserved more. For us. For each one of you. For Portugal. On and off the field, I am sure that this legacy will be honoured and will continue to be built. Together.”

Portugal coach Roberto Martinez said after his team’s exit it was “too soon” to say if Ronaldo had played his last game for his country. And just in case Ronaldo needed any further motivation, his great rival, Argentina’s Lionel Messi, this week moved into second place behind him on the all-time list of men’s international goalscorers. Messi, 37, has 109 goals set against Ronaldo’s 130. Extending his international career for another cycle would likely guarantee Ronaldo locks down that individual record.

Yet as the World Cup heads across the Atlantic, it is also a time to consider Ronaldo’s curious relationship with the United States — a country where he has not played, for club or country, in almost exactly a decade. Despite this, according to YouGov’s measure of fame, he remains the most famous footballer among Americans, above even Messi, no doubt aided by a social media following of more than 916million across Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

It is supported, too, by a string of lucrative endorsement deals within the U.S.: a lifetime contract with Nike, a 50-50 relationship with Pestana Hotels (which includes the NYC Pestana CR7), an ambassador and investor in the U.S. wearables company Whoop, a sponsorship deal with U.S. jewellery company Jacob & Co., and a Ronaldo-branded gym deal with the U.S. fitness company Crunch. And do not forget the Ronaldo waxwork unveiled in New York City’s Madame Tussauds in November 2022.

But Ronaldo’s headlines in the U.S. have not always been positive. There have been allegations — strenuously denied — of rape in Las Vegas and a $1bn ($777m) class action lawsuit brought against Ronaldo in Florida for his promotion of his non-fungible token (NFT) collaboration with cryptocurrency exchange Binance. And then there is the extraordinary story — told for the first time here — of Ronaldo and the fake Trump Tower condominium.

If we are searching for an episode that underlines the power of Ronaldo’s name in the U.S., then perhaps the best place to start is condo 57L of Trump Tower, located on New York’s Fifth Avenue. It is a lavish apartment, boasting views of the world-famous Central Park, and for almost a decade, a flurry of media reports have claimed Ronaldo has both bought and sold the property.

It began in 2015 when the New York Post reported that Ronaldo, then established as a superstar at Real Madrid, had paid $18.5m for a 2,509-square-foot loft in Trump Tower. Trump, at that point, was more than a year away from becoming the President of the United States. The story swiftly went around the world, including suggestions the apartment had been the inspiration for “the setting of 50 Shades of Grey”. The New York Post also claimed the apartment had been bought from an Italian businessman called Alessandro Proto. Publications including The Guardian, TMZ, Daily Mail, Business Insider and Vanity Fair all reported on Ronaldo’s ownership of the property at one time or another.

In 2021, another story emerged, claiming Ronaldo was now selling the property at a loss in excess of $10m and for a slashed price of $7.75m. This was reported by The Sun, Yahoo, and Vanity Fair, all of whom credited the New York Post, yet the links to the publication now go straight to the home page and there is no longer a public trace of the story. There were no public comments by Proto or Ronaldo on any of the stories in question, attributed only to sources, but other celebrities, including billionaire Warren Buffett, have previously been linked to multi-million dollar acquisitions involving Proto. Buffett told the Wall Street Journal, for example, that it was a “total fabrication” when a wave of media reports emerged claiming he was buying a Greek island off the coast of Athens with Proto’s company, and others, including Madonna, David Beckham and George Clooney were also falsely linked with purchases.

Yet the myth of Ronaldo’s ownership of a Trump Tower property stuck. In 2017, the Washington Post even published an article detailing how “nearly 7,400 fans had signed a petition” urging Ronaldo to divest himself from Trump’s building, as some supporters took a dim view of President Trump.

This week, The Athletic finally uncovered the true owner of the Trump Tower property and it was not Ronaldo — but rather a woman named Judy Roth Berkowitz. The property was sold in 2021 on Berkowitz’s behalf by the real estate agent Lee Summers for $7.18m to the Chinese Yong Xi Company LLC, according to both Summers and New York property records seen by The Athletic.

Summers said: “I’m going to clear everything up for you and you’re having it from the horse’s mouth because I’m the person who sold it. I can make this very clear. It is a very funny and strange story. I had an apartment in the Trump Tower up for sale. And yes, Judy Berkowitz was the owner of the apartment and she was my client, so I had the exclusive to sell that apartment.

“There was something written up and it was in the New York Post that Cristiano Ronaldo had owned it. We were just as surprised as anyone. To be clear, Cristiano Ronaldo never owned that apartment. Judy never sold the apartment until I sold it to a Chinese woman. The whole thing about Ronaldo came up for us because the reports said the apartment was reduced and that he had bought it for $18m.

“The rumour just would not die. And it created a life of its own. But Ronaldo never, ever owned there. Judy bought it way back, around 1990 or 1992. She was a long-time owner. There was never any deal with Ronaldo. She doesn’t remember anybody ever negotiating for him.

“I might not exaggerate when I say I must have gotten 30 or 40 telephone calls. People called because the article not only was wrong about Ronaldo, but it was wrong about the price. It said it had been $18m and slashed to $8m. So I got a lot of calls from people thinking there was a fire sale going on and because Ronaldo had owned it, they thought it must really be good. At that time with Trump, people didn’t want to go to that building. It would have been a very hard sale, but funnily enough, the Chinese woman thought it was the greatest thing since sliced cheese that she was buying in Trump’s building. And she loved him. So all’s well that ended well. It was so funny that all of us were laughing. It was a good dinner conversation for one night.

“My daughter was working in PR. So she said, ‘I have to get to the bottom of this’. She actually knew the people at the Post and she spoke to them and she said, ‘You put something in that was bogus’. This is not a correct story. And the editor from the Post sent a note that they were sorry. It was all ridiculous. We don’t know how it got there. Judy Berkowitz doesn’t know how it got there.”

The Athletic has approached the Post for comment.

A clue to how it may have got there can be found in a book published by Proto in 2017, entitled “I am the Impostor”, in which he comes clean on how he posed as a real estate agent to the stars and planted fake stories to drive publicity for his business. In 2013, he had been convicted for manipulating the financial market, according to a profile interview he granted to promote the book with Spanish newspaper El Pais in 2018. Then, while under house arrest, he carried on inventing stories, such as a rumour that Martin Scorsese was writing a biopic about him called The Manipulator and that Channing Tatum and George Clooney would have cameo roles. He even managed to get it reported that Ronaldo had been snubbed for a role in the film.

“It was fantastic,” Proto told El Pais. “I was under arrest and I was bored, so I thought about what to do. I chose the best director in the world and the most cutting-edge actors; it was crazy, I was adding artists little by little, big celebrities — Channing Tatum, Alessandra Ambrosio or Clooney himself for a cameo — and nobody asked anything, it was amazing.”

It is not only the mischievous who seek to use Ronaldo’s image to drive their business. The Portuguese is hot property for major brands and his endorsements are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. This brought trouble to Ronaldo’s doorstep when, in 2022, he launched his NFT collaboration with cryptocurrency exchange Binance on social media.

In 2023, the company pleaded guilty to violations of the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act — an anti-money-laundering law — among other charges and would pay more than $4.3bn to settle, making it the biggest penalty in the history of the Treasury Department. The Binance chief executive, Changpeng Zhao, also resigned from the company after pleading guilty to money-laundering violations. The Athletic can also reveal that Ronaldo’s former club Manchester United enjoyed a lucky escape because in 2022 they provisionally agreed a front-of-shirt sponsorship deal with Binance, which would have been a club-record $400m agreement, spread over five seasons, paid either up front or bank guaranteed. The deal did not go ahead in the end due to regulatory concerns.

Binance did, however, secure Ronaldo and in November 2023, he found himself facing a $1bn class action lawsuit in Florida in which the plaintiffs claimed they made loss-making investments on the back of his social media advertisements for Binance products.

According to the complaint, the “overarching objective” of the partnership was for Ronaldo “to help Binance successfully solicit or attempt to solicit investors in Binance’s crypto-related securities from Florida and nationwide”. It also notes that Binance is listed on Ronaldo’s personal website in a section called “I work with brands I believe in”. The investors claimed Ronaldo is responsible for them losing their money because, they say, the fact he was promoting his collaborative NFT collection with Binance materially misled them into believing that other crypto assets held on the platform were safe and were not being invested in unregistered securities when, they claim, that was not the case. They say Ronaldo knew or ought to have known this and that, in promoting Binance without disclosing how much he was being paid for doing so, he engaged in “unfair and deceptive practices”.

The case against Ronaldo has been paused but not dismissed after Judge Roy Altman issued a ruling on May 4 in which he denied without prejudice to dismiss the case. The case has been stayed until the court has adjudicated on whether it will compel arbitration. As recently as June 14, Ronaldo was continuing to promote the Binance NFT to his 633m Instagram followers and it remains listed on his website as a brand he believes in. Binance declined to comment and Ronaldo’s publicist declined to comment on this, as she did for all aspects of this report.

Ronaldo’s difficulties in the United States began in 2009. Ronaldo, then aged 25, met Kathryn Mayorga, a former teacher and model one year his junior, while on holiday in Las Vegas. This was just a few weeks before he moved from Manchester United to Real Madrid in an £80m transfer. Ronaldo met Mayorga in a nightclub called Rain and paparazzi images captured on the night demonstrated the two in conversation on the evening of June 12.

The following day, Mayorga attended the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD), where she filed a complaint but did not provide the name of her alleged assailant or the location of the incident. In an interview with the German newspaper Der Spiegel, she claimed that she and a friend were invited to a party at Ronaldo’s hotel suite, before describing, in graphic detail, how an alleged rape took place in a bedroom.

This only became public knowledge in 2017 because Der Spiegel revealed the allegations based on documents supplied by Football Leaks. Mayorga’s identity was not made public in the initial report, but she waived her right to anonymity in an interview with the German publication in 2018.

This included the fact that Ronaldo’s legal team agreed in 2010 to pay Mayorga an out-of-court settlement of $375,000 (£272,000) in return for her agreeing never to go public with the accusations.

“This agreement is by no means a confession of guilt,” a statement from Ronaldo’s lawyers said in 2018. “What happened was simply that Cristiano Ronaldo merely followed the advice of his advisors in order to put an end to the outrageous accusations made against him, in order precisely to avoid attempts, such as those we are now witnessing, to destroy a reputation built thanks to hard work, athletic ability and behavioural correction.”

In 2018, Las Vegas Police said the case against Ronaldo had been reopened and detectives were “following up on information being provided”. By the following January, they issued a warrant for a DNA sample from Ronaldo, whose legal team said it was a “very standard request”.

Six months later, it was confirmed Ronaldo would not face charges of sexual assault.

“Based upon a review of the information presented at this time, the allegations of sexual assault against Cristiano Ronaldo cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” said the Clark County District Attorney’s office. “Therefore, no charges will be forthcoming.”

A spokesperson added: “She (Mayorga) refused to identify him or disclose where the crime occurred. As a result, the police were unable to follow investigative protocols for sexual assault cases or to conduct any meaningful investigation.

“Without knowing the identity of the perpetrator or the location of the crime, detectives were unable to search for and impound vital forensic evidence. In addition, video evidence, showing interactions between the victim and perpetrator before and after the alleged crime, was lost.”

Since then, Mayorga’s legal team pursued Ronaldo for damages. The case was filed in State Court in September 2018 before being moved to Federal Court in 2019.

In June 2022, however, a Nevada judge dismissed that lawsuit against Ronaldo. US District Judge Jennifer Dorsey threw out the case and said Mayorga’s attorney, Leslie Mark Stovall, had harmed Ronaldo by conducting himself in “bad faith” and by using “purloined” confidential documents (i.e. from Football Leaks).

The lawyer representing Mayorga was then ordered to pay the former Manchester United player $334,637.50 (£275,000) in legal fees after using stolen documents in a lawsuit that was dismissed last year. Mayorga and her lawyers withdrew their appeal against paying the fees in May 2024.

It is now almost 10 years since Ronaldo last kicked a ball on U.S. soil. On August 2, 2014, he came on as a substitute for Real Madrid in a 3-1 defeat against Manchester United in an exhibition match. A crowd of 109,318 attended that match at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, underlining the appeal of the two clubs but also of Ronaldo himself. Earlier that summer, Ronaldo’s Portugal played a friendly match against the Republic of Ireland at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.

Portugal, as part of a series of World Cup warm-up games, also played Mexico at New England’s Gillette Stadium, but Ronaldo missed the game through injury. Yet Ronaldo was the centrepiece of the tour, photographed when he joined NFL side New York Jets for training and receiving a throwing tutorial from wide receiver David Nelson.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s last game in the U.S. came in a friendly in 2014 (Ira Black/Corbis via Getty Images)

In 2016, he celebrated his Euro 2016 success by holidaying in Las Vegas, including meeting UFC fighter Conor McGregor and attending Jennifer Lopez’s concert at Planet Hollywood. Since the allegations by Mayorga emerged in 2017, however, Ronaldo has not been publicly photographed at any point in the U.S.

He signed for Juventus in July 2018 and the club responded publicly to the allegations in October 2018. They said: “Ronaldo has shown in recent months his great professionalism and dedication, which is appreciated by everyone at Juventus. The events allegedly dating back to almost 10 years ago do not change this opinion, which is shared by anyone who has come into contact with this great champion.”

The U.S. firm Nike issued a more circumspect statement. It said: “We are deeply concerned by the disturbing allegations and will continue to closely monitor the situation.” The contract endures to this day.

However, a report in the New York Times detailed how the pre-season International Champions’ Cup tournament and Juventus took the saga into mind when shaping plans for the Italian club’s tour in 2019-20. Juventus had a multi-year agreement to compete in the competition, but instead headed to the eastern side of the competition, going to Asia rather than the U.S. Juventus told the newspaper it was normal to alter location after multiple previous visits to the U.S.

Since then, the pandemic put paid to global pre-season tours in 2020 and 2021, when football was often played behind closed doors. By the summer of 2022, Ronaldo had returned to play for Manchester United. The Athletic has been told the club did have a hypothetical conversation within its leadership as to what it might mean if they decided to take the squad to the U.S. for pre-season in 2022-23, but a decision was taken instead to go to Thailand and Australia. Sources familiar with the conversations insisted Ronaldo’s presence was not a major element of the decision. As it transpired, Ronaldo missed the tour in any case, citing family reasons, which he later explained to be the health of his newborn daughter during an interview with Piers Morgan.

Ronaldo did appear in New York City in November 2022 — just not in the flesh. The Madame Tussauds in New York unveiled its Ronaldo waxwork, which he met in Manchester. According to the Madame Tussauds website, “Ronaldo was blown away when meeting his wax figure in person, especially the likeness of his hair and eyes”.

“This is wax? Are you kidding?” said Ronaldo. “The face is unbelievable. Imagine two Ronaldos!”

Madame Tussauds and Visit Portugal (the national tourism board of Portugal) combined to take over Times Square for the launch, with Ronaldo delivering a video message of his ‘Siu’ celebration.

The Athletic asked Madame Tussauds if Ronaldo was invited to attend the event in person. Inadvertently, the company’s public relations officials forwarded their internal conversations on the matter, with one press officer stating, “We need to keep all of this very positive” in response to the question. Madame Tussauds then replied to say the player participated via a pre-recorded message because on that day (November 18, 2022) he was with the Portuguese national team preparing for the 2022 World Cup. They added that the waxwork launch attracted a reach of 1.2bn and claimed that “16 per cent of earth’s population was exposed to the message”.

When Ronaldo left United under a cloud that same winter — following extensive disagreements with manager Erik ten Hag — he decided to end his career in European football and instead become the kingpin of Saudi Arabian football, joining Al Nassr in a deal probably best presented in telephone numbers. Yet what is lesser known is how one MLS club, Sporting Kansas City, pursued the Portuguese forward and felt sufficiently encouraged that they informed the MLS central leadership that they were seeking to bring Ronaldo to the U.S.

The Athletic has spoken to multiple senior executives from other teams who say, over the years, there had been a quiet acceptance that a move for Ronaldo within MLS may be unlikely given both the numbers involved but also the publicity that had surrounded the allegations made against him. According to Peter Vermes, the Sporting KC manager, the club held meetings with senior representatives of Ronaldo and he told the Kansas City Star it “took on real legs”.

The Athletic has been told that MLS has an internal database of 50 players who would bring the greatest value to the league, if recruited, and it is little surprise that by most metrics, Lionel Messi and Ronaldo are in at No 1 and No 2, with Real Madrid’s new forward Kylian Mbappe ranked third.

Messi had not yet joined Inter Miami at the point Sporting KC engaged Ronaldo, but the ownership was serious; dreaming up creative packages that would have involved cuts of international jersey sales and potentially a stake in the ownership of the club. The Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes already has a stake and, according to the Kansas City Star, Mahomes had made clear he was prepared to explain to Ronaldo what it is like to live as a sporting superstar in Kansas. The feedback was positive and one meeting became another, with senior figures at the team convinced they were down to the final two before Ronaldo opted for Saudi Arabia.

Football supporters in the U.S. face a wait to see whether Ronaldo will return, 12 years on from his last appearance, to make an international finale at the World Cup in 2026.

(Top photo: Alex Grimm/Getty Images)