Ronaldo has turned Brazilian football upside down with his unexpected announcement that he buys Cruzeiro, one of the historical ones now relegated for the third consecutive year to Serie B where he tried not to drown in his own debts and incompetence.
The irruption of Phenomenon, that you have counterprogrammed the Triplet of At. Mineiro, the city’s staunch rival, is interpreted as the beginning of a new era for the country’s clubs. Its significance is similar to what it had Pele when, in 1998, as Minister of Sports in the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso placeholder image, approved the law that ended the lien on players.
With the support of one of the main financial entities in the country, Ronaldo has jumped into the ring to be a pioneer in the implementation of the new law, approved in August, which allows the creation of Soccer Stock Companies (SAF).
“Brazilian football needs this revolution in the area of management, it needs this radical change to grow again and be competitive internally and in international competitions”, sentence the Phenomenon, aware that it is leading an unprecedented transformation, which opens the doors to investors (local or foreign), in a scenario similar to that of several European leagues.
IMPACT ON ALL BRAZILIAN FOOTBALL
The Cruzeiro thing has an impact on the local ecosystem, which has nothing to do with Ronaldo’s acquisition of Real Valladolid. In the first place, because of the dimension that R9 He has in his country and, secondly, because it is one of the great teams that has always been the protagonist: he was twice continental champion, and, in the last decade, he won the Brasileirao (2013 and 2014) and the Copa do Brasil (2017 and 2018).
That Ronaldo has decided to rescue Cruzeiro It also has a high symbolic power. There is a narrative. His performance has nothing to do with the randomness of an owner who arrives by parachute. It was, in the Celeste of Belo Horizonte, where the Phenomenon became professionalWhich, by the way, stages another of the great dramas of Brazilian football, which is the waste of talent. RonaldoBorn in Rio de Janeiro, he was never hired by Rio’s big four (Flamengo, Vasco da Gama, Botafogo and Fluminense) and had to be ‘discovered’ in another state 450 km away. from your hometown.
“I want to give back to Cruzeiro for everything he did for me at the beginning of my career & rdquor;, says the new owner, who, between 1993 and 1994, marveled scoring 56 goals in 58 games, which earned him, at age 17, being called up for the World Cup in the United States (although Carlos Alberto Parreira he did not line him up for a minute) and, later, start his career in Europe at PSV Eindhoven, from where he would go to Barcelona.
The Cruzeiro operation is basically the purchase of one of the largest debts in Brazilian football, which exceeds one billion reais (about 160 million euros with the devaluation of the local currency). TO Ronaldo It will be up to him to renegotiate with the creditors, to pay clubs that have already activated FIFA, while he will inject around 65 million euros in the medium term to put the Minas Gerais team back in the elite and in the fight for the great titles.
