Will an American team sign Cristiano Ronaldo?

Soccer Superstar Cristiano Ronaldo may have to get used to calling his beloved sport “soccer” instead of “soccer” because he could very well play in the United States.

After a disappointing start to the season for his side Manchester United, where he was relegated as a substitute, Ronaldo blew up his team in a recent interview with Piers Morgan. This resulted in him being immediately released by the team. Apparently it was a mutual departure and now Ronaldo is left as a free agent.

At the moment he is concentrating on playing for his national team Portugal at the World Cup in Qatar. Ronaldo said that if Portugal wins the cup, he will stop immediately.

However, with Portugal unlikely to win everything, Ronaldo is left without a team. He recently expressed that he actually wants to play until 2025 when he turns 40 without Portugal having won the World Cup. Yet few teams will make him an offer to his liking, although there are a few options.

He admitted he was offered a whopping $350m by a Saudi Arabian club he didn’t name, but he turned it down, likely because he didn’t want to leave European football, which would mean he couldn’t compete anymore at the UEFA Champions League, the sport’s most famous annual tournament, whose all-time top scorer just so happens to be Ronaldo himself.

However, he will almost certainly not be able to play in Europe and make the amount of money he thinks he is worth. So that leads him to either reconsider the deal with Saudi Arabia or accept the offer that will come to him from Miami of all places.

The ultimate soccer league in the United States is of course MLS (Major League Soccer) and they just signed a deal with Apple TV. The $2.5 billion deal gives Apple TV broadcasting rights for 10 years and MLS teams get a share of the proceeds. In other words, money keeps pouring in for the 27-year-old American League to pay players.

Among other things, MLS has a long history of attracting many of Europe’s star players who are ending their careers and offering them high-paying salaries that European clubs are unlikely to match. One of those stars was David Beckham, who played for the LA Galaxy and won the 2011 MLS Cup with them. Today, Beckham is a co-owner of Inter Miami CF and they are keen on getting a big-name star akin to the English owners.

Earlier this month, David Beckham was seriously interested in Lionel Messi, whose contract at Paris Saint-Germain expires at the end of the season. His future could already be determined in January and Inter Miami should make a big offer.

However, with Ronaldo now suddenly a free agent, Beckham and Inter Miami are reportedly planning to make the star an offer to join their team. Regardless of whether it deters their pursuit of Messi or not, Ronaldo could suddenly be the top priority in the magic city.

Without the MLS Designated Player Rule, which allows each team to sign up to three players outside of the normal salary cap known in the MLS as the salary budget, the moves would be impossible and they would be charged a maximum of $612,500 for this Budget regardless of that player’s actual salary. This allows MLS teams to sign big-name international players, which in turn helps generate interest in the league.

Thanks to the recent retirement of Ganzalo Higuaín, Inter Miami now have two Designated Player spots available. That means both Ronaldo and Messi are a possibility, although snapping them both seems more of a dream than a reality.

However, if both Ronaldo and Messi play in Miami in the fall of 2023, it could make them one of the most watched teams in the world and perhaps the most talked about US club side since the NASL’s Cosmos had Pelé, Giorgio Chinaglia and Franz Beckenbauer on the same team in 1977 and won the championship for this historic New York club.

Regardless of what happens to Messi, a move from Cristiano Ronaldo to the United States has suddenly become a real possibility.