On December 18, Brazilian football legend Ronaldo announced that he had bought Cruzeiro Club, which made many fans feel very emotional. In May 1993, a scrawny 16-year-old began his career in Cruzeiro, after which he became the first man in world football and earned the nickname "Alien".
At the same time, public concerns about the decline of Brazilian football are rampant, and a few years ago, such an acquisition was completely unimaginable, just as you could not accept that Real Madrid barca would one day be bought by local tycoons.
Most football clubs in Brazil are non-profit member associations whose presidents are elected by their members. But that could lead to some incompetent and pompous presidents spending money recklessly, eventually plunging the club into debt.
The most typical example is cruzeiro, they are Brazil's traditional giants, won the Copa Libertadores twice, and have always been a strong team in Brazilian football. From 2013 to 2018, they won the Baja League and the Copa do Brasil, and the price of success was rising debt.
The crisis finally broke out in 2019, and Cruzeiro was downgraded for the first time in its century-old history, with their debt exceeding 1 billion reais (about 150 million euros). To make matters worse, some club directors were arrested on suspicion of money laundering, corruption and involvement in the management of other clubs.
Over the past two seasons, Cruzeiro has been under pressure from huge debts and constant investigations, and has been relegated even in Brazil's Second Division.
However, in August 2021, a window opened and a glimmer of positive sunlight shone in. The Brazilian government has passed a new law that allows clubs to form limited companies to replace membership, with members and presidents retaining only ownership of club facilities.
Some see the change as a panacea for Brazilian football, which is overly optimistic because of the many inherent dangers of the new model. For many Brazilian teams mired in debt, attracting investment and renegotiating some of their debts is what matters most at the moment.
Cruzeiro was the first to act, with the club registering the company at the end of November and receiving a member vote on December 17 to allow foreign investors to hold 90% of the shares of the limited company. The next day, Ronaldo, through his company Tara Sports, invested BRL 400 million in Cruzeiro for the club's debt settlement and normal functioning, in return he would receive a 90% stake.
Finally, Cruzeiro fans saw hope. But things won't be easy, and the solution won't work immediately. Ronaldo is fully aware of this fact, and he understands the plight of Cruzeiro.
Previously, Da Luo already had full experience with valladolid club in Spain, where he bought a 51% stake in the club in 2018 and subsequently pushed up his stake to 82%.
Since then, he has helped the team pay off a debt of €25 million, revamped the pitch and focused more on developing young people, with Valladolid's value rising significantly.
But the road has not been smooth. In 2021, Valladolid was relegated from La Liga and fans launched a massive protest, accusing aliens of being absent during the team's last home game of relegation and ridiculing him for not caring about the team's life or death, just to accumulate capital for himself.
Before joining Valladolid, Ronaldo was a partner in the Fort Lauderdale Striker, a Florida-based club that went bankrupt in 2017. In Cruzeiro's context, this is not a bad thing, because Ronaldo, who has a failed experience, does not fall into a blind situation, he has experience and will learn a lesson.
Still, reviving Cruzeiro will be the biggest challenge of Ronaldo's life. Valladolid has a limited fan base, while Cruzeiro is a giant in Brazilian football with 9 million supporters.
Ronaldo's R$400 million investment, not a one-time injection into the club, but will continue to be invested in the next few years, and his main goal now is to help the club pay off its huge debts, part of which will continue to pay off debts that cannot be renegotiated, while others will be invested in reinforcing the team in the hope of returning to the Liga as soon as possible.
Of course, many of the deep-seated problems don't magically disappear with the arrival of aliens. Ronaldo has begun to call on fans to remain calm, writing on social platforms about his feelings for Cruzeiro since he was a teenager and hoping that fans will treat him as an ordinary person, not an "alien".
"It's time to come back, I'm not a hero and can't change the reality of the club with superpowers. But I know there is a lot of responsibility on us and we need to achieve long-term growth through sustainable management. What we have to do is a new attempt to open a new chapter for the club and make Cruzeiro a part of the transformation of Brazilian football. ”
However, how Ronaldo will improve the club's operations and achieve his goals remains unknown. Did he really buy Cruzeiro out of love for the club, as if to put a question mark on it.
As Paolo Galvo, a reporter for The Globe, put it, "He never really cared what the club was like or who he was playing for. He cares about his exposure and whether he can make money from it. ”
Andre Rizek, a host on the Brazilian sports channel, said something similar, "I don't believe Ronaldo would fund the acquisition because he loved the club that started his career." He was now a businessman, and cruzeiro was almost never mentioned in his life. ”
In fact, Ronaldo makes a lot more money as a businessman than he makes as a player, and in addition to running the club, he has a number of marketing companies and acts as a player's agent, investing in esports, video sites and data collection agencies.
Of course, no matter what, Ronaldo must have hoped that Cruzeiro would make money, after all, it was closely related to his own interests. From a business perspective, Ronaldo has two options.
First of all, he can invest enough money to get Cruzeiro back to the top flight, pay off some of the debts and make the club profitable, and get the wide support of fans and public opinion, so that it will be easier for him to carry out other operations.
Second, Ronnie can imitate the operation of Qatar City Group (the owner of Manchester City) or Red Bull Group, buy a number of clubs in different countries, and carry out the work of developing and selling young players, and he already has two teams, Cruzeiro and Valladolid.
In an interview with 442 in October, Ronaldo did talk about the idea of buying a team in England, with both Charlton and Brentford on his radar.
Of course, this is just a guess. For Ronaldo and Cruzeiro, the future is intriguing and the challenges are enormous, but it seems that Ronaldo enjoyed the process. On the positive side, Ronaldo's huge popularity has helped the club gain more attention, such as Pele taking the initiative to build momentum for Cruzeiro when he participated in the show and wished Himo good luck.
In the long run, what Ronaldo will bring to Cruzeiro can only wait for the time to reveal the answer.