Ronaldo Agrees To Juventus Wage Cut, Still On Track To Become First $1 Billion Footballer This Season

Italian soccer club Juventus announced yesterday that it had reached an agreement with its players and coaches to implement a wage cut to help control costs while sports are shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The club said it expects to save $100 million by reducing compensation over four months, March to June. It further explained it will pay normal salaries when Serie A resumes play. The amount shaved is equivalent to 30% of the Bianconeri’s annual total wage bill, the highest among Serie A clubs, per Sporting Intelligence. Juventus is worth $1.512 billion, according to Forbes, and made a profit of $47 million on $480 million in revenue last year.

European media outlets are reporting that superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, Juve’s best-paid player, agreed to sacrifice $4.24 million—not enough to make much of a dent in his annual earnings and only 4% of the club’s expected savings. In an email with Forbes, Juventus declined to comment but advised against misleading reports and added it will not comment on individual players’ salaries.

Last year, the Portuguese striker earned $109 million, including $65 million in salary and bonus, to rank as the world’s second-highest-paid footballer and among the best-paid athletes in all sports. As Forbes outlined last week, even at the reported 30% pay cut under consideration by all Serie A clubs, Ronaldo would still earn an estimated $46 million annual paycheck—an amount greater than the total earnings (salary, bonus and endorsements) of all players in the world except his rival Lionel Messi at Barcelona and Neymar at Paris Saint-Germain.

With the additional $45 million he makes as a walking billboard, pitching products head to toe for the likes of Nike and his CR7 line of underwear, footwear and cologne, Ronaldo can still earn $91 million annually to retain his standing among the best-paid in all of sports, and still become the third active athlete to crack the $1 billion mark in career earnings at the end of this season. Tiger Woods was the first to do so in 2009, 13 years into his professional career, followed by boxer Floyd Mayweather in 2017.

Ronaldo has already donated $1.8 million to hospitals in his native Portugal to help with their coronavirus efforts. Contrary to previous circulated reports, Forbes confirmed with his representatives that the 35-year-old father of five did not buy an island where his family could self-isolate until it was safe to return to Italy, or offer up his namesake hotels in Portugal to be used as hospitals.

In its statement, Juventus said it will finalize personal agreements with players and coaches in the coming weeks. If individual merit-based arrangements are made, Ronaldo should fare well.

The five-time player of the year made an immediate impact on Italy’s most storied club when he arrived in Torino in July 2018 on a four-year deal worth $340 million. Within 24 hours of his transfer from Real Madrid, the Old Lady’s social media accounts grew by over 2 million followers, and they have since grown 40%. More than a million of his jerseys were sold in his first year of play, contributing to a 58% increase in revenue from products and licenses.

On the pitch, he was Serie A’s most valuable player last season and led the club to the quarterfinals of the Champions League. This season, he’s already scored 21 goals, equaling the number he scored all last season.  

Juventus is the latest among many European clubs, including German Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, to institute wage cuts while play is suspended. Just yesterday, Atlético Madrid in Spain’s La Liga announced wage reductions, and rival Barcelona is currently negotiating one.

Last week, Barça’s players rejected a reported 70% reduction. As it stands, Messi, the team’s star, could accept that cut and still be among the top three highest-paid athletes in the world. He currently earns $90 million annually in salary and partially guaranteed bonus, before taxes, thanks to a contract extension he signed in November 2017 that commits him to Camp Nou through June 2021. With endorsements from the likes of long-term sponsors Adidas and Pepsi, he banked $127 million in total earnings last year to rank as the highest-paid athlete in the world.

On March 9, Serie A play was initially suspended until at least April 3 because of the coronavirus outbreak. The hiatus has since been extended indefinitely. Italy has been the European country hardest hit by the pandemic, with related deaths surpassing 10,000 yesterday according to WHO.