The 40-year-old is said to feel that other clubs that are also owned by Saudi Arabia’s<\/a> Public Investment Fund (PIF) are getting preferential treatment, especially in the transfer market.<\/p>\n Image: Second-placed Al Nassr are one of four Saudi Pro League clubs owned by PIF, the other three being Al Hilal, Al Ahli and Al Ittihad.<\/p>\n Al Nassr beat Al Riyadh 1-0 without Ronaldo thanks to a goal from former Liverpool winger Sadio Mane.<\/p>\n The story behind Ronaldo’s absence<\/p>\n Sky Sports News’ chief correspondent Kaveh Solhekol said: “The reason he didn’t play is he’s unhappy with the way Al Nassr have been run.<\/p>\n “He thought, in this [transfer] window, that the club would dig deep, bring in reinforcements and strengthen their squad. He feels that hasn’t happened.<\/p>\n “And that’s why he’s effectively gone on strike.”<\/p>\n The Portugal international, who has repeatedly been ranked as one of the world’s highest-paid athletes<\/a>, reportedly became the first billionaire footballer<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n Read more from Sky News: <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Ronaldo signed a two-year deal with Al Nassr in 2022 after leaving Manchester United<\/a> following an explosive television interview<\/a> in which he said that he felt “betrayed” by the Old Trafford club – and “did not respect” the team’s then-manager, Erik ten Hag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cristiano Ronaldo appears to have gone on strike at his Saudi Arabian club. The Al Nassr forward, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-277817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Cristiano](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/skynews-ronaldo-portugal_7046281.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Cristiano Ronaldo signed an initial two-year deal with Al Nassr in 2022 after leaving Manchester United. Pic: Reuters<\/p>\n
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Resident doctors vote to continue industrial action<\/a><\/p>\n