Cristiano Ronaldo: FIFA 2014 (BRAZIL)

Ronaldo

Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro, (born 5 February 1985), known as Cristiano Ronaldo, is a Portuguese footballer who plays as a forward for Spanish club Real Madrid and captains the Portugal national team. He became the most expensive footballer in history when he moved from Manchester United to Real Madrid in 2009 in a transfer worth £80 million (€94 million/$132 million). Ronaldo's contract with Real Madrid, under the terms of which he is paid €21 million per year (after taxes), makes him the highest-paid footballer in the world, and his buyout clause is valued at €1 billion as per his contract. He is regarded by some in the sport to be currently the best player in the world.
Ronaldo began his career as a youth player for Andorinha , where he played for 2 years, before moving to C.D. Nacional. In 1997, he made a move to Portuguese giants Sporting Clube de Portugal. Ronaldo caught the attention of Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson, who signed him for £12.2 million (€15 million) in 2003. In 2004, Ronaldo won his first club honour, the FA Cup.
In 2007, Ronaldo was the first player in England to win all 4 main PFA and FWA awards. In 2008 and 2013, he won the FIFA/Ballon d'Oraward for the best footballer in the world, the first Portuguese player to win the award twice. He was awarded the European Golden Shoe in 2008, 2011 and 2014. In 2008, he won 3 of the 4 main PFA and FWA trophies and was named the FIFA World Player of the Year, FIFPro Player of the Year, World Soccer Player of the Year, and the Onze d'Or. In 2007 and 2008, Ronaldo was named FWA Footballer of the Year. He was the inaugural winner of the FIFA Puskás Award for Goal of the Year in 2009. In a 2014 UEFA poll, Ronaldo was named the greatest goalscorer to play in the UEFA Champions League. He is tied for the competition's second top goalscorer of all time with 67 goals, only trailing Raúl with four more.
Ronaldo is the first top European league player to reach 40 goals in a single season in two consecutive years, fastest Real Madrid player to reach 100 league goals, and the first player to score against every team in a single season in La Liga. He holds the record for most goals scored in a season for Real Madrid. In January 2014, Ronaldo scored his 400th career goal. After spending his first year at Madrid wearing the number 9 shirt, he began wearing the number 7 again following the departure of long-serving striker Raúl. Ronaldo had previously worn the number 7 shirt at Manchester United.
Ronaldo is a Portuguese international and made his debut in August 2003. He has been capped over 100 times and is Portugal's top goalscorer of all time. With Portugal he has participated in 5 major tournaments; UEFA Euro 2004, the 2006 FIFA World Cup, UEFA Euro 2008, the 2010 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2012. He scored his first international goal in the opening game of Euro 2004 against Greece, in addition to helping Portugal reach the final. He took over captaincy in July 2008 and captained them to the Euro 2012 semi-finals finishing the competition as joint-top scorer.

Ronaldo Early life

Ronaldo was born in Santo António, a neighbourhood of Funchal, Madeira, the youngest child of Maria Dolores dos Santos Aveiro, a cook, and José Dinis Aveiro, a municipal gardener. His second given name "Ronaldo" was chosen after then-U.S. president Ronald Reagan, who was his father's favourite actor. He has one older brother, Hugo, and two older sisters, Elma and Liliana Cátia. His great-grandmother Isabel da Piedade was from Cape Verde.

The family was staunchly Catholic and Ronaldo later claimed that he lived in poverty, sharing a room with his brother and sisters. Ronaldo was popular with other students at school, but he was expelled after he threw a chair at his teacher. Ronaldo later said of the incident: "He disrespected me." At the age of 14, Ronaldo agreed with his mother to then focus entirely on football.

Outside football

Personal life

Ronaldo's father, José Dinis Aveiro, died of an alcoholism-related liver condition at the age of 52 in September 2005 when Ronaldo was 20.^[301]Ronaldo has said that he does not drink alcohol and he received libel damages over a Daily Mirror article that reported him drinking heavily in a nightclub while recovering from an injury in July 2008.
In October 2005, a month after his father died, Ronaldo was arrested on suspicion of raping a woman in a London hotel and released on bail. Ronaldo denied the allegations and charges were dropped by Scotland Yard in November 2005 due to "insufficient evidence". Ronaldo issued a statement saying: "I have always strongly maintained my innocence of any wrong-doing and I am glad that this matter is at an end so that I can concentrate on playing for Manchester United."
Ronaldo announced that he had become a father on 3 July 2010. His official Facebook and Twitter pages refer to the birth of his son and request privacy. The child, named Cristiano, was born in the United States, and Ronaldo announced that he had full custody.
Ronaldo has previously dated English models Alice Goodwin and Gemma Atkinson, and since the start of 2010, he has been dating Russian model Irina Shayk. He is a practising Roman Catholic.

Wealth

In March 2010, France Football ranked Ronaldo third in its list of the world's highest paid footballers, behind David Beckham and Lionel Messi, with €30 million ($40.8 million) in combined income from salaries, bonuses and off-field earnings for the previous 12 months. His net wealth was estimated at $160 million.
In January 2014, Spain's high tax laws meant that, reportedly the world's highest-paid player in terms of gross salary, Ronaldo (£11.87 million-a-year) could only rank second in terms of net pay in World Soccer Magazine's list of the footballers with the highest salary, focusing on net basic salaries and do not include bonuses and incentives.
In May 2014, Forbes ranked Ronaldo first in their list of the world's highest paid players, with earnings of $73 million in combined income from salaries, bonuses and off-field earnings for the previous 12 months. 

Reference: 1) Wikipedia
                   2) ME