Cristiano Ronaldo was the talk of a loan move from Al Nassr to Al Hilal in view of the latter’s 2025 FIFA Club World Cup campaign, but a club executive has now come out to state why such move ended up not happening.
According to Al Hilal Chief Executive, Esteve Calzada, in Miami ahead of Al Hilal’s Club World Cup opener against Real Madrid, Ronaldo joining the club would have been counter-intuitive, considering that the Portugal legend would be coming from their Riyadh arch-rival, Al Nassr.
40-year-old Ronaldo will be a free agent at the end of June when his contract at Al Nassr expires, leading to the former Real Madrid and Manchester United star being linked with a short spell across town for the sake of the revamped Club World Cup.
“As much as I respect Ronaldo as a huge player, as we all recognise he is, it’s certainly completely counter-intuitive that you bring the biggest player of your biggest opponent to play with you. Even more when it’s only for three to four weeks,” Calzada told BBC Sport.
“We normally don’t comment on players’ situations, particularly because our name is always put out there, when a player or an agent wants to negotiate a better deal with his club, or is trying to move out,” the Al Hilal chief added.
He went on to say, “It’s been a very weird transfer window, it’s a very short period of time. You don’t want to take a decision thinking about this tournament that then you have to carry on with for the next two or three years.”
He also revealed that the club is in the market to strengthen the team although no major signings have been made so far for a number of reasons. “We’ve been trying to see if we can reinforce the team. But some players were with a mindset of ‘holidays already’,” he said.
Calzada added, “Some players were sometimes just asking for too much money, and we’re aware that our team is extremely competitive. We’ll go into the traditional transfer window after the tournament still with the biggest ambitions to see if we can reinforce the team even more.”
Al Hilal, now managed by erstwhile Inter Milan boss, Simone Inzaghi, will open their Club World Cup campaign against Real Madrid on Wednesday night. Apart from Ronaldo, Al Hilal were linked with a move for Bruno Fernandes, who eventually decided against the move to stay at Old Trafford.