Ronaldo, a retired Brazilian football player, has amassed a significant fortune, with a net worth of $160 million, and is considered one of the best players of all time, known for his impressive skills on the field and his numerous awards and accolades, including three FIFA World Player of the Year awards and two Balon d'Or awards.
Ronaldo, also known as 'R9' or 'O Fenomeno', is a retired Brazilian football player with a net worth of $160 million, who made a substantial impact on the sport, despite having a relatively short time in the spotlight. As a prolific goal-scorer, he led Brazil to a memorable World Cup title in 2002 and is credited with revolutionizing the way strikers play football. At the height of his career, Ronaldo was regarded as the best player in the world and is now considered one of the greatest players of all time. He won the FIFA World Player of the Year award three times and received the Balon d'Or award twice, with his first win at the age of 21 making him the youngest ever recipient, and he was also the youngest person to win the FIFA World Player of the Year award at age 20. Professional football clubs were willing to pay hefty sums to have Ronaldo on their teams, and he broke the world record signing fee twice. After retiring from football, Ronaldo became involved in philanthropic work, serving as a United Nations Development Programme Goodwill Ambassador and an ambassador for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. In 2018, he purchased a team in the Spanish La Liga called Real Valladolid, and in 2021, he acquired a controlling stake in Cruzeiro. Born on September 18th, 1976, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Ronaldo Luiz Nazario de Lima was raised alongside two siblings and started playing soccer in the streets of Rio from a young age. Following his parents' divorce when he was 11, Ronaldo dropped out of school to pursue a career as a professional soccer player, beginning as a futsal player, joining a youth league, and quickly becoming the lead scorer in the entire city's league, with 166 goals in his first season alone. Futsal played a crucial role in Ronaldo's development, helping him learn technical skills and close ball control that would become his key strengths in his later playing career, and he was soon signed by sports agents. Ronaldo made his professional debut for the Brazilian side Cruzeiro in 1993, scoring five goals in one match at just 16 years old, and started to attract international attention, scoring 44 goals in 47 games during his first season, before joining the Brazilian World Cup squad in 1994 as an unused substitute. After the World Cup, Ronaldo joined Dutch side PSV Eindhoven, scoring 30 goals in his first season, which led some to wonder if he had what it took to be the best player of all time at just 18 years old, although his second season at PSV was marred by a knee injury. Before the 1996-1997 season, Ronaldo joined Barcelona for a then-world-record fee of $19.5 million, scoring an impressive 47 goals in all competitions and ending 1996 with a FIFA World Player of the Year Award. Ronaldo spent only one season at Barcelona before moving to Inter Milan, breaking the world record with a signing fee of $27 million, and although he had to adapt to the Italian style of play during his first season, he eventually became a more complete striker during his time at Inter and won his first Ballon d'Or. In 1998, Ronaldo entered the FIFA World Cup as a starting striker for Brazil, and many considered him to be the best player on the planet, scoring continuously throughout the tournament before a convulsive fit threatened to take him out of the final, and he miraculously recovered just hours before kickoff, but seemed dazed, and Brazil lost the final to France, with a neurologist later determining that Ronaldo should not have been allowed to play while feeling the aftereffects of a seizure. In the years that followed, Ronaldo began to experience serious issues with his knees, suffering a complete rupture of his kneecap tendons in 2000, which caused him to miss almost three years of professional sport, although he returned in 2002 to help Brazil win the World Cup, signing with Real Madrid for 46 million Euros, and was one of Real's key players, but suffered from continuous injury and weight issues during his time in Madrid. After playing one last time for Brazil in the 2006 World Cup, Ronaldo transferred to A.C. Milan in 2007 for 8.05 million Euros, and in 2008, he suffered another serious knee injury and joined the Brazilian club Corinthians shortly thereafter, before officially retiring in 2011, revealing for the first time that he suffered from hyperthyroidism, which explained his weight gain issues, and admitting that his body simply couldn't continue after suffering so many injuries, even though mentally, he wanted to keep going, with his entire footballing career lasting 18 years. Outside of his commitment to Nike, Ronaldo has appeared in a range of other commercials over the years, including notable appearances in Snickers and Pirelli commercials, and he is also a regular feature in EA's 'FIFA' video game franchise. In 2018, it was announced that Ronaldo had purchased a controlling stake in the La Liga club Real Valladolid, paying approximately 30 million Euros for a 51% stake in the team, making him the majority owner, and after the acquisition, Ronaldo announced that he was approaching his new managerial role with the utmost seriousness, stating that he wanted to build 'the best team possible.' In December 2021, he purchased a controlling stake in Cruzeiro, his boyhood club, for 400 million reais. Ronaldo met Brazilian model and actress Susana Werner in 1997, and the couple had a long-term relationship and lived together in Milan until 1999, before he married Brazilian footballer Milene Domingues in December 1999, who was pregnant with his first son, and they divorced four years later. In 2005, Ronaldo became engaged to Brazilian model and MTV VJ Daniela Cicarelli, but the relationship lasted only three months, and in 2008, he got engaged to Maria Beatriz Antony, and they had two daughters together. In December 2010, a paternity test confirmed that Ronaldo was the father of a boy named Alexander, who was born after a brief relationship with a Brazilian waitress named Michele Umezu, whom Ronaldo first met in Tokyo in 2002, and after confirmation of a fourth child, Ronaldo had a vasectomy.