Conflict surrounds Ronaldo’s Man U return

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This article was published 10/09/2021 (1800 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Cristiano Ronaldo will make his Old Trafford return on Saturday, and Manchester United fans are understandably excited.

Cristiano Ronaldo is an alleged rapist.

Both of these things are true, and the dissonance in reading these lines only underscores the conflict of the situation.

There is the “homecoming,” as it has been styled, of a superstar who won three Premier League titles, two League Cups, the FA Cup, the Champions League and the Ballon d’Or during his first six years at the club. He may not start against Newcastle (9 a.m., DAZN), but he’ll almost certainly be introduced as a sub, no doubt to rapturous applause, and even if he doesn’t the cameras will be fixed on him, anyway.

That’s understandable. Even at 36, Ronaldo is one of the top footballers on the planet and among the best two or three to have ever played the game. Last season at Juventus —widely considered one of his worst — he still scored 36 goals. Just this week he became the all-time male goal-scoring leader internationally. No one has found the back of the net more often in the Champions League.

Whether United actually need him is almost beside the point. At least, that’s the narrative they’re working with.

The boy-wonder who joined from Sporting CP as an 18-year-old has come back home, reunited with the club that made him a superstar, with the father figure in Sir Alex Ferguson who oversaw his development from raw, awkward winger to best player in the world.

Ferguson, now a club director in his dotage, played no small part in persuading him to don the red shirt once again, as did former teammates Rio Ferdinand and Darren Fletcher. Nevermind that his preferred destination was Manchester City — an inconvenient bit of information that doesn’t really detract from the euphoria surrounding his second United debut.

Most professional athletes at Ronaldo’s level, not that there are many, couldn’t care less about these kinds of storylines — at least, not beyond what they generate in terms of image royalties. That’s not being cynical; it’s merely a fact.

It’s also a fact that Ronaldo will score a lot of goals this season, as he does, even if he contributes almost nothing to the press, which United don’t utilize much, anyway, and keeps a blue-chipper like Mason Greenwood out of the XI. United are a better team with him in it, although they’d likely have been even better had they spent their money on Declan Rice.

That said, it would have looked silly had they watched on as City pipped their club legend, and to that end they didn’t have much of a choice. And so, understandably, they brought him back, and, again understandably, embraced the opportunity to make a fairy-tale of it all.

Kathryn Mayorga, however, has been absent from the narrative.

Yes, she has a name, and it’s her story that makes this all a bit uncomfortable — which it absolutely should. And Ronaldo, whom she alleges raped her in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2009, should not in any way be able to conceal what is also part of his story, no matter the power of his celebrity and ability to buy silence.

The case does not need to be relitigated here. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department reopened its investigation in 2019, and as a result Juventus cancelled a summer tour of the United States out of fear Ronaldo would be detained. In 2020 a federal judge recommended confidential arbitration.

In other words, Ronaldo will likely never see the inside of an American courtroom.

What does a Ronaldo fan, a United fan, a football fan, do with that? Can they cheer for a player while he’s on the pitch and hope he faces justice when he’s off it? Can they hail his dribbles and free-kicks and goals and grieve the allegations that saw Ms. Mayorga sue him for battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, coercion, fraud, abuse of a vulnerable person, racketeering, defamation, abuse of process, negligence and breach of contract?

It’s a discord that surfaces often in culture, generally, and it’s important to not only consider the discomfort but to also sit in it a while and take it into the rest of life, perhaps with personal applications.

Believing women is vital. So, too, for many fans, is reflecting — as this writer has done, and continues to do — on how they view and treat women, correcting when necessary.

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It won’t solve the Ronaldo conundrum. He’ll still be there, setting records and winning trophies. Realistically, looking away is well near impossible. And so, what is left is an uneasy duality.

Cristiano Ronaldo will make his Old Trafford return on Saturday. Cristiano Ronaldo is an alleged rapist.

Both of these things are true.

jerradpeters@gmail.comTwitter @JerradPeters