BREAKING: The meeting between the 39-year-old footballer Cristiano Ronaldo and the Major League Soccer club (MLS) was revealed, and ownership share was discussed

Before he moved to Saudi Arabia, Cristiano Ronaldo almost joined an MLS team. An ownership share was talked about as part of the talks.

Ronaldo, who is 39 years old, quit football in Europe at the beginning of 2023 and signed a three-year deal with the Saudi club Al Nassr after Manchester United agreed to end his contract at Old Trafford.

In the process, he became the highest-paid football player in the world. The Portuguese ace is said to make £177m a year with the Saudi Pro League team.

Ronaldo had talks with a number of other teams before he signed with Al Nassr.

And things might have been very different if he had taken the deal from Sporting Kansas City.

Peter Vermes, the head coach of Sporting KC, told the Kansas City Star that the club met with Ronaldo’s agents several times before he moved to Saudi Arabia and that talks “took on real legs.”

According to The Athletic, the MLS had a list of 50 players at the time who would be the most valuable to the league if they were signed. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo were named as the top two players, with Kylian Mbappe coming in third.

The news source says that Messi had not yet joined Inter Miami when Sporting KC started talking to Ronaldo.

People said the MLS team was “serious” about their approach and had put forward “creative packages” that could have included a share of the club’s ownership and a cut of the sales of foreign jerseys.

News from the Kansas City Star says that Patrick, quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs and owner of Sporting KC, was ready to show Ronaldo what it’s like to live in the city as a sports star.

“The feedback was positive and one meeting became another, with senior figures at the team convinced they were down to the final two before Ronaldo opted for Saudi Arabia,” said the report.

The Athletic story says that moving Ronaldo to the United States was once seen as unlikely by many top executives from other clubs for a number of reasons.

People say that there was “quiet acceptance” that the move would not happen because of the costs of signing the five-time Ballon d’Or winner and the “publicity that had surrounded” the rape claims made against him in the US.

Kathryn Mayorga, a former model and teacher, said that the former Manchester United and Real Madrid football player raped her in a Las Vegas hotel in 2009.

The claims against Ronaldo have always been strongly rejected, and he has never been charged.

It is said that Mayorga and Ronaldo made a settlement outside of court in 2010 that was worth $375,000 (£304,000).

Mayorga sued Ronaldo in the US in 2022, but the judge threw out the case. The claimed payment could have gone up by millions of dollars.