Heading into the 2022 World Cup, Cristiano Ronaldo’s storied career suddenly seemed uncertain. Benched by Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag and facing questions about his advancing age, the Portuguese superstar forward said in a bombshell interview with Piers Morgan that November that he felt “betrayed” by the club. Days after the interview aired and just as the World Cup was kicking off in Qatar, Ronaldo and Manchester United mutually agreed to terminate his contract.
What a difference four years makes.
While Ronaldo is still seeking his first World Cup trophy as he makes his record-setting sixth appearance in the tournament this summer at age 41, his unemployment was short-lived, and his abrupt divorce with the Premier League was a blessing in disguise for his bank account. The contract he ended up signing with Saudi Pro League club Al-Nassr in January 2023—and renewed for another two years in 2025—is believed to pay him more than $200 million annually, a jaw-dropping figure even for a player who was already raking in $60 million or more on the field each year in England, according to Forbes estimates.
Now, factoring in endorsements and other business endeavors as well as his playing salary and performance bonuses, Ronaldo is the first athlete ever to cross $2 billion in career earnings while still active in his sport (before taxes and agent fees and without adjusting for inflation). He is also now a billionaire, with a net worth Forbes estimates at $1.2 billion.
Ronaldo becomes one of just four active athletes on the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires, alongside NBA star LeBron James, golfer Tiger Woods and Ronaldo’s longtime soccer rival Lionel Messi, who likewise made his debut on the list on Friday. Former soccer star David Beckham also recently joined the billionaire ranks, thanks in part to his minority stake in Major League Soccer’s Inter Miami.
Representatives for Ronaldo declined to comment about his wealth, but in another interview with Morgan in November 2025 that carried a more triumphant tone than their conversation three years earlier, Ronaldo said he closely tracks his finances and claimed he has been a billionaire for years.
“It was my goal to reach that number,” said Ronaldo, who is now the second-richest person from Portugal. “It’s like winning a Golden Ball.”
Ronaldo was referring to the Ballon d’Or, an award for the world’s best player that he has won five times, more than anyone but Messi, and his brash confidence has made him the perfect foil to the understated Argentine. (After Ronaldo won his first Ballon d’Or during his first stint with Manchester United in 2008, Nike unveiled a marketing campaign with the tagline “Your love makes me strong; your hate makes me unstoppable.”)
But the two legends also have much in common, starting with their emergence on the global stage as teenagers.
Born on Madeira, a small volcanic island in the Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of miles from mainland Portugal, Ronaldo was spotted by scouts for Sporting Clube de Portugal and moved to Lisbon at age 12 in 1997. He joined Sporting CP’s senior team in 2002, when he was 17, and was impressive enough that he signed with Manchester United a year later for a transfer fee of around $20 million.
In six years under manager Alex Ferguson, Ronaldo became a breakout star, helping the Red Devils capture three straight Premier League titles before jumping ship to Spain’s Real Madrid in 2009 for a record transfer fee of about $130 million.
Ronaldo then bounced to Italian club Juventus for three years, followed by his ill-fated return to Manchester United and eventually his move to Al-Nassr. Along the way, he won eight league championships (three in the Premier League, two in La Liga, two in Serie A and the 2026 Saudi Pro League title) and five UEFA Champions League trophies, and he led Portugal to its first major international tournament victory at the 2016 European Championship. Between club and international competition, Ronaldo has scored a record 973 goals, and he has said on multiple occasions that he wants to reach 1,000 before he retires.
Winning Move: Real Madrid spent about $130 million to sign Ronaldo, a record transfer fee, but the decision paid off, with the club claiming four Champions League titles during his nine seasons there.
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His paychecks have matched that success. Ronaldo first appeared on Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-paid soccer players in 2008, with an estimated haul of $18.5 million, and he has placed among the ten highest-paid athletes from any sport since 2010. This year, he is No. 1 with an estimated $300 million over the past 12 months—$235 million on the field, $65 million off it—matching a record set by boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2015. Ronaldo has now been the world’s highest-paid athlete for four straight years, and six times overall, leaving him behind only Woods, who has topped the ranking 11 times.
Ronaldo is so synonymous with the earnings list that Conor McGregor told him in 2016 that he hoped to overtake him in the ranking. When the Irish MMA fighter made good on his promise and climbed to No. 1 in 2021 after the sale of his whiskey brand Proper No. Twelve, he told Forbes, “I’m glad I pipped Ronaldo this year.”
The long lucrative run gives Ronaldo a record $1.4 billion in career on-field income, according to Forbes estimates, and total earnings of $2.1 billion, besting Messi’s roughly $1.8 billion as well as Woods’ career total of just under $2 billion.
Ronaldo has likely been able to hang on to a bit more of that money over the past few years while playing in Saudi Arabia, which has no personal income tax, and he has taken steps to try to minimize his tax burden in the past as well. (Like Messi, he landed in some hot water in Spanish courts over allegations that he evaded taxes on his endorsement income during his Real Madrid tenure by funneling payments to shell companies in tax havens. He agreed to pay a $22 million fine to settle the charges in 2019.)
And while many other sports stars who have been lured to Saudi Arabia by inflated paydays bankrolled by the nation’s Public Investment Fund have had to sacrifice exposure and endorsement earnings, Ronaldo’s massive brand—with nearly a billion followers across Instagram, Facebook and X, the largest fan base of any person on earth—gives him the best of both worlds. His portfolio of more than ten active long-term sponsorships includes Binance, Herbalife and Therabody, along with a lifetime apparel deal with Nike, and he runs a YouTube channel with nearly 80 million subscribers.
Ronaldo has also been taking steps in more entrepreneurial directions. His CR7 brand encompasses gyms, fragrances, watches and clothing, plus a luxury hotel chain he launched in 2016 as a joint venture with the Madeira-based Pestana Hotel Group. It now operates five properties, including a hotel in New York’s Times Square that opened in 2021.
As an angel investor, Ronaldo took a stake in Whoop in 2024 and participated in its $575 million funding round this past March, which valued the health and fitness tech startup at $10.1 billion. He also invested an undisclosed amount in AI search startup Perplexity in December and bought a 25% stake in second-division Spanish club UD Almería in February, showing no sign of resting on his laurels or fading into the background as his playing career winds down.
“When you reach some level, the money doesn’t matter anymore, in my opinion, but it’s always good to have more,” Ronaldo said in his interview with Morgan last year. “We’re human beings. We’re never happy with what we have.”