According to CNN Brazil and several other media sources, Ronaldo has sold 90% of the Cruzeiro club, and the buyer is Pedro Lourenzo, the owner of the chain store. Ronaldo himself held a press conference on April 29 to confirm the facts, so that the only club left under his name was Valladolid, a member of the Spanish second division. It is worth mentioning that the reason why Ronaldo sold Cruzeiro was that he was disliked by the fans, and they even publicly unfurled banners demanding the expulsion of owner Ronaldo.
Cruzeiro is a veteran football team in Brazil and Ronaldo's former parent club, but it has developed poorly over the years and was on the verge of bankruptcy due to a financial crisis. At that time, in order to save his old club, Ronaldo spent money to buy Cruzeiro's shares and became the de facto controller of the team. According to Ronaldo's plan, he invested a total of 400 million reais, or about $80 million, to run the team, but after a few years, the actual investment was only $10 million, and the team's squad construction is still stagnant, and the results are even worse.
It was in this situation that the Cruzeiro fans could not bear it anymore and openly attacked the owner of the club. Ronaldo may realize that it is not as easy as imagined to build a good team, and he is not like those traditional capital predators, who inject hundreds of millions of dollars at every turn and simply walk away. Interestingly, despite Cruzeiro's poor operations, Ronaldo still netted $30 million from this investment. Of course, this incident also confirms once again a truth, a good player does not necessarily become a good coach, let alone a good boss. Even Beckham, who has a better overall operational performance, has also been criticized by the outside world from time to time because of operational problems, which shows that the pressure on being a team owner is not lighter than when he is a player.
Ronaldo is a core member of the "76 Golden Generation" in football, and is also regarded by many fans as the most comprehensive center player of all time, although he has been retired for more than 10 years, he is still sought after by the majority of fans. Ronaldo did not work as a coach after retiring, but played capital operation, and after accumulating original funds through a series of operations, he began to invest in the team. If the acquisition of Cruzeiro is somewhat emotional, then the acquisition of Valladolid should be to achieve the business goal on the football field.
It's just that judging from the current situation, Ronaldo is not as talented in running the club as he is on the pitch. Valladolid were a mid-table team in La Liga in previous years and have now been relegated for several seasons. It is widely believed that Ronaldo is reluctant to continue to inject money and is tired of running the club, and he hopes that Valladolid can return to La Liga, so that he can take advantage of the high price to sell his shares and completely unload the burden. So far this season, Valladolid are second in La Liga, level on points with leaders Leganés and three points ahead of Eibar, with a good chance of promotion. Ronaldo controls 82% of Valladolid's shares, and the value of the team is much higher than that of Cruzeiro.