Cristiano Ronaldo's hopes of Champions League return DASHED by UEFA boss

Stuart Telford

• 31 Aug 2023 21:33 BST
• 3 min read

UEFA chief Aleksander Ceferin has shot down suggestions that Cristiano Ronaldo's Al-Nassr - or any other Saudi Pro League club - could be invited to take part in the Champions League in the future.

The Saudi Pro League's CEO Carlo Nohra floated the idea of teams from the region taking part at European football's top table on an invitational basis last week, which might have been music to Ronaldo's ears.

The Portuguese is the competition's record scorer with 140 goals with Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus, and had initially instructed then agent Jorge Mendes to find him a Champions League club when things went south with Erik ten Hag at Old Trafford last year.

READ: Cristiano Ronaldo at Al-Nassr: Goals, assists, results & fixtures

Of course, a move to Al-Nassr transpired instead, and Ronaldo is now the highest paid player of all-time on €200 million a year. But any hopes he had of adding to his UCL record appear to have been dashed by Ceferin.

'Only European clubs can participate'

"Only European clubs can participate in the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League," he told l'Equipe in no uncertain terms. "Only European federations can apply [to host] a final, not even clubs. We would have to change all our rules, and we don't want that."

The Saudi Pro League has made another splash this summer, attracting the likes of Karim Benzema, Neymar and N'Golo Kante to the division, but Ceferin isn't worried about the challenge to European football, saying he's seen it before…

READ: Toni Kroos SLAMS Saudi Arabia: 'a decision against football'

"It's not a threat, we saw a similar approach in China, which bought players at the end of their careers by offering them a lot of money," he assrted. "Chinese football didn't develop and didn't qualify for the World Cup afterwards.

"There are players at the end of their careers and others who aren't ambitious enough to aspire to the 'top' competitions. As far as I know, [Kylian] Mbappe and [Erling] Haaland don't dream of Saudi Arabia."