Cardinale Pursues Al-Nassr as Ronaldo Aims for 1,000 Goals
Gerry Cardinale is plotting his next move, and it could collide head‑on with Cristiano Ronaldo’s final act.
RedBird Capital Partners, the American investment firm that has already planted its flag in European football, is exploring a deal to buy Saudi Pro League club Al-Nassr from the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund. It is the club Ronaldo has turned into his personal scoring playground since arriving in 2023.
If the takeover happens, it would do more than just shift ownership. It could turn the 41-year-old Portuguese superstar into a part-owner of the very team he leads on the pitch.
Building a new power network
RedBird’s interest in Al-Nassr is no impulsive punt. The firm has spent the last few years methodically assembling a serious football portfolio.
In 2020, Cardinale’s group took an 85 per cent majority stake in Toulouse, dragging the French side into the modern data-driven era. Two years later, RedBird completed the acquisition of AC Milan, one of the sport’s true heavyweights, adding Italian prestige to its growing stable.
Al-Nassr would be a different kind of prize. A club at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s football project, fronted by Ronaldo, and potentially plugged into a multi-club network that already includes Milan star Christian Pulisic. The idea of Pulisic at San Siro and Ronaldo in Riyadh under the same ownership umbrella is the sort of strategic symmetry investors dream about.
Cardinale, though, insists this is still early-stage work rather than a done deal.
‘We are at a preliminary stage’
Speaking to Gazzetta dello Sport, the RedBird founder acknowledged that talks over Al-Nassr are under way, but he was keen to underline just how tentative they remain.
"There have been discussions to assess the Al-Nassr opportunity and I was contacted to look into it, but we are at a preliminary stage. I work a lot in the Middle East," Cardinale said.
The conversations are not just about balance sheets and broadcast deals. They are also about one man.
Ronaldo’s contract in Saudi Arabia runs until June 2027. Any new owner would inherit not only his goals but also the question of what comes next for him once the goals finally stop.
"I'd like to meet Ronaldo because I'm curious to find out what he might want to do when he retires and what his future involvement with the Saudi club might be. I'll continue to assess the possibilities of managing multiple clubs, although I already have Toulouse and AC Milan," Cardinale added.
That is the potential twist: Ronaldo not just as a marketing pillar, but as a partner in the boardroom of his final club.
Ronaldo, the ‘alien’, closes in on 1,000
While the financiers talk, Ronaldo keeps rewriting the script on the pitch.
On Thursday, the 39-year-old moved a step closer to the scarcely believable 1,000-goal career mark, smashing a hat-trick in Al-Nassr’s 5-3 Saudi Pro League win over Al-Kholood. The veteran forward is now just 15 goals shy of that historic tally, a number that once felt like fantasy.
The match itself turned into a spectacle. Eight goals, wild swings, and one man still refusing to age. Among those watching was heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk, who summed up the experience with a simple description of Ronaldo as "an alien".
It felt apt. At a stage when most players of his generation have long since retired or faded into bit-part roles, Ronaldo is still bending matches to his will, still chasing numbers that sound more like myths than statistics.
After the game, the Al-Nassr captain went straight to social media to mark the occasion. "Great win, great team performance," he wrote. "Happy to help with a hat trick!"
The message was brief, but it carried a familiar subtext: the standards have not dropped, the hunger has not eased.
A crossroads of goals and governance
Ronaldo’s march towards 1,000 will dominate the football conversation every time he steps onto the pitch in the Saudi Pro League. Each goal from here on carries historical weight.
Behind that chase, another storyline is quietly forming. RedBird’s preliminary talks with the Public Investment Fund could reshape Al-Nassr’s future, and with it, Ronaldo’s role in the sport once he finally walks away from the grass.
A club led on the field by one of football’s greatest ever players, potentially steered off it by an ownership group that already controls AC Milan and Toulouse. A superstar captain who might yet trade his boots for a stake in the boardroom.
If the deal goes through and the goals keep coming, Al-Nassr could become the place where Ronaldo not only completes his scoring odyssey, but also starts writing the next chapter of his football life.
