Cristiano Ronaldo agrees to huge £3.45m pay cut as Juventus slash costs to combat financial hit of coronavirus... but Portugal icon is still on track to become football's first $1BILLION man

• Cristiano Ronaldo is unlikely to notice the £3.45m cut he has taken at Juventus
• The success of his work off of the pitch is still likely to earn him millions this year
• So lucrative is his business portfolio, he is set to be football's first billionaire    

                                                                                     

Cristiano Ronaldo has mirrored his success on the football pitch in his business ventures away from it and is in line to become the game's first ever billionaire player

     

Cristiano Ronaldo is doing his bit to help Juventus save money during the coronavirus outbreak but due to the astronomical success of his business ventures away from the pitch, he's unlikely to notice the financial hit.

                                                                       

Ronaldo, pictured alongside his partner Georgina Rodriguez last November, earns around £36m a year through endorsements and advertising a number of products

Ronaldo has taken a pay cut of £3.45million, which, in line with the rest of his Juve team-mates, will help the Serie A giants save up to £100m from March until May.

But a player of Ronaldo's calibre has a number of projects off the field of play that cash-in on his profile as one of the best footballers in the history of the game. That success means he is still on the brink of taking his career earnings into the billions this year.

                                                                                 

Ronaldo has a number of lucrative projects away from football, including his underwear range

         According to Forbes, Ronaldo earned a staggering £89m last year but his Juventus wages accommodate for marginally over half of that income at about £53m, once bonuses are all counted.

Forbes adds that Ronaldo earns around £36m a year from his endorsements, including his sponsorship agreement with Nike, his underwear brand and an array of other advertising projects such as footwear and cologne. He has also appeared on the front cover of the FIFA 19 video game.

And with his earnings from those ventures all still set to roll in this year, it means the Portuguese star is in line to become footballs first billion dollar man - and shows just how marginal his £3.45m pay cut will turn out to be for him.

                                                                                 

           Last year, Ronaldo was on the front cover of the extremely popular video game FIFA 19

 

                                                         

Ronaldo also has his own CR7 aftershave that contributes to his astronomical level of income

Ronaldo, Forbes say, would become only the third active sportsman to crack $1bn after Floyd Mayweather and Tiger Woods - both of whom have had much longer careers in boxing and golf than Ronaldo, 35, will ever have playing football.

The staggering figures also serve to underline just how lucrative an off-field portfolio of business ventures can be for a footballer, especially if you are as famous as Ronaldo.

Ronaldo is the third-highest paid player, behind Barcelona's Lionel Messi and Paris Saint-Germain forward Neymar, but has significantly maximised his earnings through his brand and reputation.

Furthermore, Ronaldo's temporary wage cut in Italy, which Juventus agreed for their squad on March 28, projects the spotlight further onto the Premier League where players are yet to reach an agreement over how wages could potentially be deferred. Attention has particularly fallen on to Tottenham - last year's Champions League finalists who are owned by American billionaire Joe Lewis - who have placed 550 employees into furlough.

It was revealed that chairman Daniel Levy took home £7m last season while players earning up to hundreds of thousands a week are, at present, not impacted financially by the economic impact of the cornavirus pandemic.

Since the outbreak of the virus has halted football in Italy and eventually across Europe, Ronaldo has been self-isolating in Madeira with his family.

Three of Ronaldo's Juventus team-mates - Blaise Matuidi, Paulo Dybala and Daniele Rugani - have tested positive for coronavirus