Rabat – Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said that Portuguese player Cristiano Ronaldo was the victim of a political ban at the Qatar World Cup over his support for the Palestinian Cause
“Unfortunately, they applied political sanctions on Ronaldo,” Erdogan said, expressing his regret that a great player like Ronaldo was benched during some of his team’s matches at the tournament and could only play for 15 or 30 minutes.
Erdogan made the statement at the “My First Vote to Erdogan” event where the president met with the youth of Erzurum city as part of his 2023 election campaign
He stressed that the decision to bench Ronaldo during the tournament must have had a negative impact on the player’s “psychology and energy.” The Portuguese player was benched during his squad’s round-of-16 game against Switzerland and quarter-finals game against Morocco.
“Ronaldo is now going to Saudi Arabia, according to the information I’ve received,” Erdogan added, confirming widely circulated reports that the footballer is set to join Saudi club Al-Nasr.
Türkiye’s president made his remarks in response to a question from a speaker from the audience, who asked him which player he thought was better, Ronaldo or Lionel Messi, whose team won the World Cup title.
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The speaker agreed with Erdogan’s theory and attributed Ronaldo’s “political ban” to the fact that he supports the Palestinian cause, as well as to the player’s decision to remove Coca-Cola bottles placed in front of him at a press conference in 2021.
Even though Cristiano has never publicly spoken about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict or whether he supports the Palestinian cause, widely-circulated reports suggested that the football star had donated $1.5 million to help feed people in Gaza during Ramadan.
However, the speculations were later proven to be false, AP News quoted a spokesperson from Cristiano’s management company as saying.
