Riyadh Victory Regrets Official Announcement: The Match Has Been Postponed
On the evening of the 23rd, Riyadh Victory Club suddenly announced that due to Ronaldo's inability to play due to physical reasons, the club's two matches with Shanghai Shenhua and Zhejiang will be postponed.
For the postponement of the match, Ronaldo apologized to all Chinese fans at a press conference held yesterday: "Today is a very sad day for me. I want to apologize to the Chinese fans, I love China and I want to play for you. ”
"I've been playing for 23 years and injuries are inevitable and I'm sad about that," he said. Chinese fans have always been in my heart. At the same time, Ronaldo also stressed: "The game has not been cancelled and we will be back." ”
Ronaldo has long been dissatisfied: forced play, Internet celebrity attacks, and turmoil with goods
On January 16, Ronaldo was photographed with gauze wrapped around his leg and training with an injury. Knowing that, the organizers still spared no effort to "do the work", and even persuaded Ronaldo to "play for the fans", which made Ronaldo quite dissatisfied.
The dinner on the China trip also made Ronaldo feel uncomfortable. The banquet was sold by the organizers for a large number of "seats", and most of the buyers were Internet celebrities. After spending the admission fee, the Internet celebrities use live broadcasts and other methods to obtain benefits. Throughout the dinner, Ronaldo was annoyed by autographs, group photos, and live broadcasts.
In addition, before Ronaldo's trip to China, a live broadcast platform turned to joint planning with the organizer after discussing with Ronaldo to no avail, and persuaded the Riyadh Victory team to carry out live broadcast in the name of the team. However, in the promotional posters released later, there was only a portrait of Ronaldo himself and the Internet celebrity's partner, and Ronaldo and Riyadh Victory Club were very dissatisfied with this.
The only thing Ronaldo was pleased at the dinner was that he met his old friend, former Manchester United player Dong Fangzhuo.
The organizer has a hard time: my expenses can't be "wasted"
Riyadh Victory's appearance fee for this trip to China is as high as 11 million US dollars, of which 10.5 million are Ronaldo's. At the Shenzhen Universiade Center Stadium, according to the current ticket price, it is basically necessary to fill the seats, and sell 50,000 tickets to protect the capital. But judging from the later sales, Ronaldo's box office appeal is not as great as imagined.
It is said that only 18,000 tickets were sold for this kick of Shenhua. This time, the organizers of Ronaldo's trip to China divided the ticket sales into several stages, and the initial pre-sale tickets were sold out within an hour, but when it came to the official ticket sales stage, they found that they could not be sold out at all, and there were still many high-priced tickets that no one bought. The organizers stopped the game in time to save the damage, and at the same time, the initial investment had to be earned from other commercial activities, so they had to arrange some "flower work" that made Riyadh and Ronaldo annoying.
Under the game of all parties, the postponement is a helpless move
Ronaldo is the irreplaceable trump card of Riyadh's victory in China, and it is the reason why Chinese fans pay for tickets. Without Cristiano Ronaldo, Riyadh Victory is unattended. Cristiano Ronaldo was a key figure in this trip to China. The dissatisfaction caused by Cristiano Ronaldo's failure to play in the South Korean friendly match is a lesson from the past. The Chinese organisers and promoters will learn the lesson and have a clear Cristiano Ronaldo clause in the agreement, and Ronaldo's playing time is linked to Riyadh's appearance fee.
Ronaldo is indeed injured, and his walking posture at the dinner can be seen, and it is definitely not a fraud. The organizers asked Ronaldo to play, stating that they knew there was an injury, but they didn't think it would affect him. Canceling two games in a row, instead of just postponing one, there must be a big commercial factor behind it, selling dinner seats to Internet celebrities, and pulling Ronaldo live to bring goods, all of which have revenue considerations and need to recover costs. But even so, in the end, even if Ronaldo played, he couldn't recover the cost, and finally they made a decision to postpone the game and refund part of the cost to the fans.
The reason why Riyadh Victory said that it was postponed rather than canceled the trip to China pointed out that they reached a new agreement with the organizers and promoters is that Riyadh Victory and Ronaldo need the world's largest football market, the support of Chinese fans, and the need to maintain multi-party relationships and take care of the interests of all parties. Whether this is a stopgap measure or a matter of other considerations depends on the course of events.
The feelings of the fans are truest of all: extreme anger
Riyadh's victory in organizing a trip to China should not simply make money, the financier behind it is rich and rivals the country, and it is not bad for money. Saudi Arabia sent Riyadh to China to China with deeper considerations, to show a new image of Saudi Arabia, to expand its influence in the world, and to maintain friendly relations with the eastern powers. But the problem is that Riyadh can not make money, but the organizers and promoters cannot afford to lose, they cannot afford not to take into account economic factors. Riyadh will never offend Cristiano Ronaldo for a friendly match. So in the end, after weighing it again, I simply threw out the raw rice and started a new stove.
Among the parties, only the fans were the most seriously injured, bought tickets, booked a room, spent travel expenses, and went to Shenzhen with great expectations, but the game was suddenly canceled the day before the game. Former women's football player Li Jiayue collapsed to the point that she wanted to scold her mother, not to mention ordinary fans, the cost they paid was greater, and some fans had saved up private money for a long time, or even borrowed money to watch the game, and it was really difficult to accept such a situation emotionally. Whether Ronaldo's trip to China can be successful in the end depends on Riyadh's victorious next step, let's ride a donkey and watch the script.