FOOTBALL AND MONEY Professionally sold image

Cristiano Ronaldo (33 years old) had several hits over the last few days, even though in the final tournament of the World Championship he failed to exceed expectations, as Portugal was eliminated in the round of eight.

Like a true professional, Ronaldo continues to sell his image very well, managing to stay at the top of athletes with the highest annual income.

We find that Facebook is in negotiations for what could be its most important production: a reality show about Cristiano Ronaldo. According to Variety, quoted by news.ro, the company wants to broadcast the documentary on Facebook Watch, its platform for TV content, and Ronaldo could be paid 10 million dollars for a show of 13 episodes. The concept belongs to CAA, while the series will be produced by Matador Content and Religion of Sports, a media company founded by Gotham Chopra, Michael Strahan, Tom Brady and production company Dirty Robber. The stage of the negotiations is still unknown. Representatives of Facebook, CAA and Religion of Sports have declined to comment, and Jay Peterson, the founder of Matador and CEO of the company, have declined to respond to the enquiry by Variety. Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo, an attacker of Real Madrid, is the most popular athlete on Facebook - his official page has over 120 million fans.

The show is focused on a female football team in a high school in New York which inspires the community to overcome the racial, ethnic and class differences. Facebook has funded over ten original series for Watch, over the last year, but the project involving Ronaldo would have been the biggest bet so far.

Aside from that, Ronaldo caused a shock when he getting upset at the termination clause being cut down to 100 million Euros, stressing that in his view, this meant he wasn't appreciated by Real Madrid. Ronaldo thinks that the amount was ridiculous, given current prices. Thus, through that move, Ronaldo prepared a boost for his career, and moreover, he will be paid 30 million Euros a year by Juventus, a record for a player his age. On the other hand, the stock of Juventus Torino rose on the Milan stock exchange by 26%, after it became known that the club would buy Cristiano Ronaldo from Real Madrid, according to Belga. On Monday, the shares were priced at 0.65 Euros, and closed on Thursday at 0.82 Euros. On Thursday alone, the shares rose 11.9%. The 0.82 Euros level hasn't been reached since February. The publication "Calcio e Finanza" notes that Juventus has gained 160 million Euros, as the capitalization of the club has increased from 665 million to 825 million, before the player even signed the agreement.

In 2017, Ronaldo was first in the chart of best paid athletes, with 93,000,000 Euros, thanks to his salary and advertising contracts, followed by American basketball player Le Bron James (86.2 million dollars), Argentinean footballer Lionel Messi (80 million dollars), Swiss tennis man Roger Federer (64 million dollars) and American basketball player Kevin Durant (60.4 million dollars).