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Brazil legend Ronaldo has revealed that he considered buying a Major League Soccer franchise before opting to acquire Spanish club Real Valladolid. The former Barcelona and Real Madrid star purchased a 51 percent stake of Real Valladolid in 2018 for €30 million and became the club's president. - Stream ESPN FC Daily on ESPN+ (U.S. only)
- Don't have ESPN? Get instant access Ronaldo was previously a minority owner of the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, a team in the North American Soccer League, but it folded in 2016, two years after he bought in. "I went to New York and I had a meeting with the MLS president and he presented his ideas 'you can win all you want but if you don't have €70m for the franchise, you go nowhere,'" Ronaldo said. "That made me reject that project. "Then I went to London to study sports management and sports marketing." Ronaldo said he continued his search for a club after the 2018 World Cup. "I looked a lot, in the [English] Championship but everything was too expensive. The Premier League is a complete success worldwide and so is the Championship. But you had to have £60m, so I then looked in Portugal and Spain, where the prices were more affordable." Even so, it appeared that Ronaldo would not find a club to purchase. Yet an opportunity arose that he didn't want to pass up. "When I was no longer thinking about that, I heard there was an opportunity at Valladolid. I negotiated for a week and ended up paying €30m." A two-time World Cup winner with Brazil, Ronaldo played six seasons in LaLiga -- one for Barcelona in 1996-97 and five for Real Madrid, beginning in 2002-03. Valladolid defended their LaLiga status for two consecutive seasons after Ronaldo's takeover before being relegated to the second division in the 2020-21 campaign after finishing second from bottom in the standings.
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