The FIFA World Cup has concluded, with Spain beating the now-former World Cup Champions Argentina in the final. We saw many legends participate for their countries, including James Rodriguez, Fernando Muslera, and Mohamed Salah, to name a few. First, I want to focus on one “legend” of the game, Cristiano Ronaldo. An Icon of football, records are broken wherever and whenever he plays, 5 Champions Leagues and international honours with Portugal, especially the Euros. He is also an alleged rapist.
People seem to either forget, ignore, or not even know about that side of Cristiano. On more than one occasion, Ronaldo has been accused of Sexual Assault, once in 2005 and once in 2009. He has denied both allegations and maintained his innocence.
The 2005 case was dismissed for insufficient evidence, but we must recognize that even an accusation carries serious weight and warrants due focus. If the justice system in most countries were remotely fair, the statistics on rape convictions might have been much higher.
In 2010, He paid Kathryn Mayorga $375,000 as part of a confidential settlement after she accused him of raping her in a Las Vegas Hotel room in 2009. Nothing says “I’m innocent” like a big bag of hush money. He had 2 games from his 3-game suspension suspended by FIFA shortly after he met and spent time with people like the US President Donald Trump, a man found liable for rape and ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
He has been happily platformed by major clubs and organisations such as Manchester United, Real Madrid, and Juventus, who willingly looked the other way. His fans all over the world, men and women alike, pretend those accusations are nothing, bogus, irrelevant, and they go back to fawning over him.
If someone voices their dislike of him as a player, as a person, or both, they are met with hate, abuse, and harassment, from which not even Ronaldo’s Portuguese teammates are spared. PSG midfielder João Neves said in a post-match interview: “I know well what Ronaldo has done for us. But right now, he is just like the rest of us—another player here to help. He is the same as everyone else.” As a result, his social media comments were filled with hate and abuse, telling him to “play for Ronaldo.”
His fans did not stop there; an AI-generated image of a comment from João Neves’ girlfriend saying Ronaldo needs to retire began circulating. Ronaldo fans fell for it and began hurling abuse and hatred at her as well. This is bigger than tribalism, or “my player is better than yours.”
If there were no cases like this, and Cristiano Ronaldo was proven innocent, he’d be one of my all time favourite players because there is no doubt he has had a career that most legends would dream of, but when you make the atmosphere around you so toxic, vile, vague, and filled with an air of evil, none of those footballing achievements matter in the end.
I hope the world sees Cristiano for who he is, not what they want him to be, because the truth may hurt even more than it would if people looked at him through an unbiased lens. All of this, just to protect someone who has no idea that you or others like you exist