Cristiano Ronaldo attends White House dinner alongside Saudi crown prince

On Tuesday night, superstar footballer Cristiano Ronaldo and Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler ate a black-tie dinner at the White House.

Donald Trump, the president of the United States, praised Ronaldo’s performance as a face of the country’s modernization drive ahead of the event. His starring role in the Saudi football league has made him a face of the country’s modernization movement.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman wants to diversify into sports and tourism to lessen its dependence on oil revenues.

Many critics make the claim that Saudi’s investment is intended to gain legitimacy and draw attention to its oil industry’s environmental impact and human rights record. This is known as “sportswashing.”

Trump praised closer ties with Saudi Arabia during his dinner speech, calling the nation a “major non-Nato ally.” Trump hosted the Saudi Crown Prince earlier in the day in the Oval Office.

Trump addressed the audience by saying, “My son is a big fan of Ronaldo,” referring to the Portuguese soccer star.

“And I just introduced him to Baron (Trump), and I think he respects his father a little more now, just because we’ve spoken to him,” he said.

Also at the dinner was tech billionaire Elon Musk, who joined other influential business leaders including Apple CEO Tim Cook. It is the first time Musk has been to the White House since stepping down as the head of the Trump administration’s Department for Government Efficiency (Doge) in April.

Musk announced that he would form a new political party, which a dramatic conflict between Trump and the Tesla tycoon spanned months of public discourse.

Ronaldo’s White House visit, however, is one of his first official trips to the US since 2016.

He has since been accused of sexual assault. Ronaldo denied the accusation of sexual assault against her in a hotel room in Las Vegas in 2009.

“I firmly refute the accusations that have been made against me.” Rape is an abhorrent crime that goes against everything he claims to believe and to do in 2018.

Because Ronaldo’s accusations couldn’t be proven, US prosecutors said in 2019 that he wouldn’t be charged.

Ronaldo’s pay deal with Saudi Arabia was astronomical in a game where players are paid out incomparably. The footballer reportedly received more than $ 500,000 per day, or $ 152 million, annually.

Then, according to Bloomberg, he became football’s first billionaire player with a net worth of $1.4 billion and signed a new two-year deal in June of that year for a rumored $400 million (£300 million).

For a 40-year-old football player in his final years of his career, that’s a lot of money.

However, Saudi Arabia has “invested heavily in high profile events and individuals to put the kingdom on the map” in terms of sport and tourism in its effort to become modern, according to Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House.

In an interview with Piers Morgan, Ronaldo made the referenda to bin Salman as “our boss.”