Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Ronaldo offered $120 million to play in MLS

According to Fox Sports Net - Fox Soccer Report, Brazilian striker Ranaldo was offered $120 million over ten years to come play for the New York Red Bulls of Major League Soccer.

Ronaldo has expressed interest in playing in the U.S. later in his career but further stated that he is very happy where he is at now.

11 comments:

Kartik said...

MLS strikes out again. In 1999 they offered Davor Suker then languishing on the bench at Arsenal a crazy sum of money to come over and he turned it down.

In 2000 the league spent $4 million to buy Luis Hernandez's contract and that didn't work out very well. That same year the league brought in Lothar Mathaeus, Khodabab Azizi, Miklos Molnar, Andres Limpar and one or two other former World Cup stars and all were in and out of the league in a season or two.

MLS seems to be doing alright with younger American players and some well known past their prime internationals. However the New York franchise is a big problem for the league both in financial and results terms.

Anonymous said...

This offer has nothing to do with MLS and everything to do with the new owners of the NY franchise.

MLS did everything it could to make the NY team relevant by giving them every international "name" player available Donadoni, Branco, Matthaus, and now Djorkaeff.

Now that Red Bull has taken over by purchasing the team, it is up to them to identify and sign players. It would be their money that would cover such a huge contract as they offered Ronaldo.

Red Bull would be better off spending 120M on a stadium that was really in "New York".

Kartik said...

Well said USA 06.

Even though the Metros got the arguably league's best first year int'l signing Roberto Donodoni, they stunk. (Carolos Valderamma was the other top first year int'l signing of note) Keep in mind Donodoni was still a starter for Italy's Euro 96 squad. Then they were given a deal where they had Hurtado and Savarese up front together and still could not win. In those days MLS teams did not have that lethal a strike force combo. Then came the Sasa Curcic and Mahomamed Khakpour year that saw the Metors with leagues all time worst record. Khakpour, an Iranian World Cup veteran was so-so, but Curcic who was a big name in Serbia was one of the bigger busts in the histiory of the league and that is saying alot. Then they got Matthaus and were decent only due to Clint Mathis arriving at midseason when LA was awarded Luis Hernandez and thus LA had to dump a star player. Then they fell back to the dpeths of despair and even Djorkaeff solid form for a 37 year old cannot prevent them from being a joke. Why? My theory is the Meodowlands and lack of a soccer specific satdium to draw an ethnic soccer frenzied crowd from New York City. As you said until Red Bull addresses that, the team can get any big star and still have lackluster attendence for most games and not be very good.

Anonymous said...

Maybe because USA is the greatest country in the world.

Hernandez said...

mls is very good for newer league. soon it will be one of the best in the world.

Anonymous said...

Please! Ronaldo would score 5 goals a game in your piddly minor league. What utter rubbish that he'd even consider jumping to the equal of street football against a bunch of university children!

Anonymous said...

It would be nice if Ronoldo could score 5 goals a game in MLS but the fact is not one European or South American import has ever dominated the league.

The real question is can Ronoldo Red Bull sell 5 more tickets a game?

Anonymous said...

Talking about the virtues of other leagues compared to the MLS brings back memories of the NASL. With an all star bunch of imported players from the world over, the league play in NASL was lack luster compared to games played in the current MLS. A few stars such as Van Beveren, Chinaglia, Cubilas, Best and Figeroa stood out, but the league play in my opinion was inferior to the current MLS where very few foreign players of the Van Beveren caliber play. Don't sell MLS short!

Anonymous said...

NASL was a league filled with over the hill brits and others treating ameerica like a drunk vacation. MLS is a quality league that develops young players of an international caliber. Many top US players started in MLS before moving abroad as did int'l superstars Shaun Bartlett, Stern John and Damani Ralph.

Anonymous said...

What a great site, how do you build such a cool site, its excellent.
»

Anonymous said...

Great site lots of usefull infomation here.
»