World football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo cannot yet play at Al-Nassr because the Saudi club has exceeded its quota of foreign players, club officials told AFP on Thursday.
The 37-year-old Portuguese striker, considered one of the greatest footballers of all time, said Tuesday in Riyadh that he wanted to play as soon as possible, starting with the home game against Al Ta’ee originally scheduled for Thursday, and postponed. See you Friday. But Cristiano Ronaldo is the ninth foreign player to join Al-Nassr, surpassing the maximum of eight allowed by the Saudi Football Association. “Al Nassr hasn’t registered him yet because there is no vacancy for a foreign player”told AFP a club official, on condition of anonymity, not being authorized to speak to the media.
“A foreign player must leave so that Ronaldo can be registered, either through a transfer or a contract termination by mutual consent”. Al-Nassr’s foreign players include Colombian goalkeeper David Ospina, Brazilian midfielder Luiz Gustavo and Brazilian forwards Anderson Talisca and Cameroonian strikers Vincent Aboubakar. According to Saudi media, Uzbek midfielder Jalaluddin Masharipov is most likely to make way for the five-time Ballon d’Or and five-time Champions League winner. “Negotiations are ongoing on the sale of one of the players, but they have not entered the final stage yet”, said another club official, confirming that the Portuguese player had still not been registered on Thursday afternoon, hours before the scheduled match against Al Ta’ee. The meeting was nevertheless postponed to Friday, due to a “power failure”, according to the authorities.