Cristiano Ronaldo of Al Nassr celebrates at Al Awwal Park Stadium on August 22, 2024, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Yasser Bakhsh/Getty Images
Football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo is expected to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday—the same day Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will be visiting for a day of engagements with the president, two White House officials told CNN. Ronaldo, who plays in the Saudi Professional League, has scored 143 goals for the Portugal national team and is the first male player to score in five World Cups. Earlier this year, he became the first billionaire athlete in the sport following the contract he signed with Al Nassr, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Ronaldo’s visit to the White House comes as Trump is set to host the Saudi prince with the full trappings of a state visit, including a welcoming ceremony and a state dinner. However, the visit cannot be classified as an official state visit because Prince bin Salman is not the head of state of Saudi Arabia. It will include a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office and a luncheon. This is the Crown Prince’s first visit to the White House in over seven years and the first since the 2018 killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Turkey. A CIA assessment released afterward found that the prince likely ordered the killing, though he has long denied any involvement. The appearance also marks what appears to be a rare visit to the U.S. by Ronaldo. He last played in the U.S. in August 2014 when he featured for European giant Real Madrid against another of his former clubs, Manchester United, during a summer preseason tour in Michigan. Ronaldo has previously faced legal trouble in the U.S. over allegations of raping a woman in Las Vegas in 2009. Ronaldo has always vehemently denied the allegations and maintained the intimacy was consensual. Local authorities never filed charges, and the civil case against the Portuguese star was dropped in 2022 due to “misconduct” by the plaintiff’s attorney. Ronaldo has not appeared publicly in the U.S. since. 2026 World Cup will be Ronaldo’s last Ronaldo recently told CNN that the 2026 FIFA World Cup “definitely” will be his last. “I will be 41 years old and I think it will be a moment in a big competition,” the five-time UEFA Champions League winner told Becky Anderson of CNN at the Tourisme Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, last week. The superstar also admitted to CNN that he is likely nearing the end of his storied career: “Let’s be frank, when I say soon, I probably mean one or two more years in the game.” The expanded, 48-team World Cup, the largest in history, kicks off on June 11, 2026, and is being co-hosted by the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. The World Cup draw is scheduled for December 5 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Trump has regularly promoted the U.S. hosting of the World Cup, including during an event in the Oval Office on Monday with FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
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