{"id":249036,"date":"2025-11-07T09:30:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T09:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/249036\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T09:30:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T09:30:20","slug":"ronaldo-explains-absence-from-diogo-jotas-funeral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/249036\/","title":{"rendered":"Ronaldo Explains Absence from Diogo Jota’s Funeral"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cristiano Ronaldo attracted headlines after making the decision not to attend Diogo Jota<\/a>\u2018s funeral, which the Portugal captain has now explained.<\/p>\n

Jota tragically passed away along with his brother Andre Silva on July 3, with a funeral service held in their hometown of Gondomar two days later.<\/p>\n

The majority of his Liverpool teammates were able to attend along with the likes of Jordan Henderson<\/a>, Thiago, James Milner<\/a>, Fabinho<\/a>, Caoimhin Kelleher<\/a> and many of his Portuguese compatriots.<\/p>\n

A notable absentee for the tabloid press was Ronaldo, who has since explained why he made the decision not to pay his respects in public.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter my father died, I\u2019ve never been to a cemetery again,\u201d he said as part of an interview for Piers Morgan Uncensored.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know me and you know my reputation, wherever I go it\u2019s a circus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also didn\u2019t go because if I went the attention would go to me, and I don\u2019t want this kind of attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI felt good with my decision. I don\u2019t need to be in the first line so people see me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI planned things, I thought about his family. I don\u2019t need to be in the cameras, I do it behind the scenes, I feel better in that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"GELSENKIRCHEN,<\/p>\n

Jota shared the pitch with Ronaldo on 32 occasions for Portugal, and the 40-year-old gave his insight into the person as well as the player.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiogo was one of us. A very good guy, quiet guy, a good player as you know. But very level-headed,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really liked to meet him, to share with him some great moments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was sad. I had the opportunity to speak with their family and give support, because these moments we cannot explain.<\/p>\n

\"LIVERPOOL,<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is gone because of one moment. We have to enjoy the life we live.\u201d<\/p>\n

On hearing the news of Jota and his brother\u2019s death, Ronaldo said: \u201cI didn\u2019t believe it when they sent me the message.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cried a lot. It was a very, very difficult moment for everyone. For the country, for families, for friends, for teammates. Very, very, very sad news.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diogo and Andre were honoured with tributes by the Portugal national team as well as their clubs, with Liverpool retiring his No. 20 shirt, while supporters sing Jota\u2019s song in the 20th minute of every game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cristiano Ronaldo attracted headlines after making the decision not to attend Diogo Jota\u2018s funeral, which the Portugal captain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[3204,16033,218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-249036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-cristiano-ronaldo","tag-diogo-jota","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}