Juventus bet €100M on Ronaldo for the Champions League — and never reached a final

In July 2018 Juventus paid Real Madrid €100 million for Cristiano Ronaldo, then 33, plus €12 million in additional costs, and gave him a four-year contract at a reported €30 million a year after tax. The signing was priced against one outcome: the club had not won the Champions League since 1996, and the trophy had become, in the BBC's words, an obsession. The market validated the bet instantly — shares rose 42% in the week the transfer broke, and 520,000 shirts sold within 24 hours of his presentation.

The trophy never came. Across three seasons Ronaldo scored 101 goals in 133 appearances and helped Juventus to five domestic trophies — two league titles, a cup and two Super Cups — but in the Champions League the club went backwards: eliminated by Ajax in the 2019 quarter-final, then by Lyon in the 2020 last 16 on away goals despite two Ronaldo goals, then by Porto in the 2021 last 16, again on away goals, in a tie Juventus led until extra time.

The bet had a second half the market ignored: a €30-million-a-year wage on top of the fee, carried by a club whose revenue could not grow fast enough to absorb it. When the pandemic emptied stadiums and the early European exits cut broadcasting money, the losses arrived — €209.6 million in 2020-21, still with Ronaldo on the books, and a record €254 million in 2021-22, the season after he left, as the wage structure his salary had reset outlived him.

In August 2021, with the fourth year of the contract looming and the wage bill choking the club, Juventus sold Ronaldo back to Manchester United for an initial €15 million — about 15% of what it had paid — and the player he had been signed to beat was still winning the trophy elsewhere. Ronaldo left with 101 goals and a warm official goodbye; the club was left with the bill.