Cristiano Ronaldo will ‘build’ Padel City in Portugal to close the distance with Spain in the sport

Cristiano Ronaldo is adding another business to his portfolio of activities outside of football, and this time it is the construction of a complex dedicated to padel tennis in his home country.

Portuguese star bets that Portugal is growing in padel and closing the distance with Spain, a neighboring country and one of the world powers in this sport.

According to the President of the Portuguese Paddle Federation, Ricardo Oliveira, Cristiano Ronaldo is part of a consortium that will design and build a city dedicated to the sport in the country.a complex that will require a $5.4 million investment and is due for completion in early 2025.

The “City of the Paddle”, which will be built in the city of Oeiras, on the outskirts of Lisbon, This will become “a reference point and a calling card” for this method in Portugal and “will contribute to further strengthening the training path and the national teams,” Oliveira explained in an interview with EFE.

The same federation announced this week that The project will be built by Lusofinança Lda, whose majority shareholder is businessman Filipe de Botton, a former representative of Banco Sabadell, and CR7, SA, a company headed by Cristiano.

The participation of Cristiano and the CR7 brand “adds incredible value to the national padel”said the FPP president, who hopes to “be able to benefit from brands’ growing investments in their development,” the president said.

In addition, he emphasized that Cristiano ‘is an example for everyone’ and he can also be a role model for padel tennis athletes because, in his opinion, “There is no more dedicated and dedicated professional in world sport.”.

“And we all know the sky-high scale of his popularity and the interest generated by all his actions and efforts,” he added.

This, coupled with the popularity that padel has gained in Portugal, suggests that it is a good bet for the consortium both economically and sportingly, and as an example he mentions that 11 years ago there were only eleven padel clubs, and there were dozens of padel tennis clubs, whereas today there are more than 300 teams, 11,000 federated athletes and 250,000 fans.

They strive to shorten distances with Spain

By promoting this method in Portugal, the city of Padel could be a step towards reducing distances with Spain.

“It is true that Spanish padel has many years ahead of it, it started decades before us, but we believe that the strengths of this complex can be a step towards closing the distance with those who started the race before us,” Oliveira said. .

Despite this distance, the federation president stressed that Portugal is the second country to have organized the most World Padel Tour tournaments since 2013, second only to its Iberian neighbor, and is the “third largest power” based on the results of its athletes.

“We have been able to achieve success with little money, having the structure of a young federation, but we are focused on raising funds that allow us to increasingly expand the scope of our activities and our ability to support our members, clubs and athletes,” he pointed out.

Thanks to the city of Padel, it will be easier to “attract more and more young athletes to take up the sport, as this is the only way to produce champions capable of competing at the highest international level.”

“Despite how much we have already done, we know that there is still much to be done,” he concluded.

Cristiano’s new business outside of football

The paddle joins lCristiano Ronaldo’s long list of investments and ventures outside the playing fields, for example hotels bearing his name in cities such as Madrid and New York, a hair transplant clinic or bottled water.among many others.

Estimated The Portuguese soccer star earns about $215 million a year. between club salaries, image rights and sponsorship.

*According to EFE