Cristiano Ronaldo ‘exit clause’ revealed as £173m ex-Man Utd star can perform transfer U-turn this year

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Cristiano Ronaldo reportedly has an ‘exit clause’ in his contract at Saudi Arabian side Al-Nassr so the ex-Man Utd could leave the club this summer.

Ronaldo signed for Al-Nassr towards the end of December. This comes after he left Man Utd before the World Cup.

His premature departure from the Red Devils came about after Ronaldo hit out at Erik ten Hag by admitting that he does not respect the head coach.

This gave United no choice but to let Ronaldo leave. The 37-year-old initially wanted to leave Man Utd in the summer but the club and Ten Hag were keen to keep him at this time.

It was understood at the time that Ronaldo’s desire to leave came after United failed to qualify for the Champions League last season.

Ronaldo is one of the competition’s greatest-ever players, scoring 145 goals in 197 appearances.

He has opted to move further afield though as he has put pen to paper on a two-and-a-half contract at Al Nassr. It is understood that he will be earning around £173m a year in Saudi Arabia.

Ben Jacobs is now reporting that Ronaldo has ‘exit clauses in his favour’. One is that he can join a Champions League club as early as this year if they ‘make him an offer’.

The reporter has rubbished suggestions that this is ‘specific to Newcastle United’, though.

‘The advantage for Ronaldo in all of this is that he has a football contract until the summer of 2025, but, within that, there are exit clauses in his favour, such as a general Champions League clause,’ Jacobs wrote for Caught Offside.

‘There’s no truth whatsoever to the Newcastle Champions League clause, that’s absolute nonsense, but there is a general clause that allows Ronaldo to leave if a club playing in the Champions League make him an offer.

‘But there’s no obligation on him to leave unless he wants to, and there’s nothing specific to Newcastle, I very much doubt that if they qualify for the Champions League they would want to sign a 38-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo.’

Jacobs has insisted that Ronaldo ‘was not rejected’ by European teams. Instead, it was just a ‘difficult deal to do’ even with the player ‘willing to accept a 30% pay cut’.

He has also stated that Al Nassr’s ‘partners and financial backers’ helped to make a move for Ronaldo possible.

‘In the end, the move to Al Nassr came about for a variety of reasons. Saudi Arabia have a vision of using sport to promote a healthy lifestyle, tourism, and growing the Saudi league,’ Jacobs added.

‘That’s really important, because once you buy into that vision, you get backing, so Al Nassr were able to sign Cristiano Ronaldo because they got partners and financial backers to help with the move – just 40% of the deal came from Al Nassr themselves.

‘They were able to get the deal done because of various financial sponsors.’

Source:Story by Lewis Oldham,

Football 365