The authorities in Gelsenkirchen had taken every possible precaution. At the Arena AufSchalke stadium, additional security guards patrolled the perimeter of the stadium. Plainclothes security officers were stationed in the stands, and two imposing security guards stood at the edge of the tunnel leading to the changing rooms.
But even that wasn’t enough. As Portugal’s players headed to the changing rooms following their defeat to Georgia last week, one fan bypassed extra security measures by diving over the tunnel and jumping directly into the path of Cristiano Ronaldo.
Instead of coming face to face with his hero, the intruder landed wrong and fell down a flight of stairs. But the argument was already made: Ronaldo’s appeal is such that no matter what the stadium authorities or security services do, in the end it is not possible to stop people from trying to take a selfie with him.
By now, Ronaldo’s fame cannot be overstated. At 39, he has been one of the two best footballers of his generation for the past 20 years: he has broken countless records, been a serial champion and won the Ballon d’Or as the best player in the world several times.
That status has begun to wane in recent years as time has progressed in his career, but it has had little impact on his broader presence. He remains a walking billboard. His endorsement portfolio includes high fashion (Louis Vuitton), heavy industry (Egyptian Steel) and cryptocurrency (Binance).
His image has been used to sell products as diverse as luxury watches, nutritional supplements and Japanese facial toners. Saudi Arabia is currently attempting to grow an entire top-flight football league in light of his supernova. He is more than a brand, though; he is a particular kind of aspiration, a mix of wealth, success and a great skincare routine, a high-performance podcast brought to life in the flesh.
By one of the metrics modern culture has decreed most meaningful — the number of followers you have on Instagram — Ronaldo has a claim to being the most famous human being in the world. He has 633 million followers, twice as many as Beyoncé. Put another way, if Cristiano Ronaldo’s Instagram were a country, it would be the third-largest in the world.
In fact, his fame is such that, during the first three weeks of Euro 2024, he has started to cause a headache for all those involved.
The most immediate issue is a security issue: all but one of Portugal’s matches in the tournament have been disrupted by one or more fans trying to get onto the pitch to take a selfie with Ronaldo.
After the first two pitch invaders entered the field during Portugal’s opening match, the Portuguese football federation wrote to UEFA, European soccer’s governing body. The letter was polite and written in a way that seemed to acknowledge that the combination of social media and Ronaldo’s celebrity was new territory for soccer, but requested that additional security measures be taken.
After Portugal’s second game (against Turkey, when half a dozen fans entered the pitch), Portugal manager Roberto Martinez admitted it was becoming a “concern” after one of his other stars was brought to the ground by a steward chasing a man heading straight for Ronaldo.
The issue has been discussed at UEFA’s daily operational meetings, and Germany, the tournament’s host country, has already been fined more than $21,000 for failing to maintain security at its grounds. It’s unclear, however, how much more can be done. “It’s really difficult once they’re on the pitch,” said Tom Richmond, founder of Security and Safety Solutions, a company that provides both to soccer teams and players. “The security guards are all on minimum wage; they’re not really a barrier to anyone wanting to get on the pitch.”
But there is a sense that Ronaldo’s fame may also be a sporting problem. Portugal have reached the quarter-finals (they play France in Hamburg on Friday) but their performances have been generally uninspiring. They beat the Czech Republic in their opening game thanks to an injury-time goal. They lost their final group game against Georgia, the lowest-ranked team in the tournament. They had to resort to a penalty shoot-out to get past Slovenia in the last 16.
There is a common thread running through all those matches: the superstar, perfectly toned and immaculately coiffed, fending off selfie-seeking fans. Ronaldo is the only outfield player to have started every single one of Portugal’s games. He is yet to score a goal. His most notable contribution so far was missing a penalty in extra time against Slovenia, a miss that led him to burst into tears.
In many ways, though, his performances have not come as a huge surprise. Ronaldo has spent much of the past two seasons playing in Saudi Arabia’s revamped league. He has not played in the Champions League, the top tier of club football, since 2022.
His international career seemed to have come to an end during the World Cup 18 months ago, when he was dropped from the starting line-up in a match against Switzerland. Until then, he had only scored one goal in the tournament, from the penalty spot. His replacement, striker Gonçalo Ramos, scored three goals in just over an hour. It seemed that a new page had been turned.
However, Martinez evidently thinks otherwise. He was brought in after the World Cup and has been a staunch defender of Ronaldo throughout this tournament. The striker’s presence, Martinez has made clear, is non-negotiable and is based on his own merits, as he said last month. Even after the Slovenia game, Martinez was quick to proclaim how “proud” he was of his ageing star.
While there are others willing to make the other side of the argument — to suggest, delicately, that all those fans with cellphones in hand are looking for a photo with someone who, like them, probably shouldn’t be on the field — it’s not an easy position to take.
“When someone knocks on the door, you don’t ask who it was, you ask who it is,” Portuguese journalist and presenter Sofia Oliveira told CNN Portugal after the game against Slovenia. All of her classmates knew about it, she said, but they didn’t seem particularly keen to say it out loud.
The images spread immediately. The reaction was, in part, predictably scathing. “Questioning his value is always difficult, because we are talking about one of the greatest players of all time,” Oliveira said in a series of text messages to The New York Times.
Oliveira stressed that he does not believe that “he no longer has the quality to represent the national team”, but that “the current stage of his career” must be taken into account.
“This is not the first competition in which it has become clear that the current Cristiano Ronaldo does not present enough footballing arguments to secure an undisputed place,” he said. “Portugal has options and, in order not to undermine his status, we are ignoring other players.”
Their view – the most common among observers outside Portugal – is that Martinez and his employers are unwilling to omit or even replace Ronaldo and that in doing so they are no less bound by his celebrity than those who rush out of the stands in the hope of getting a photo.
The reason for this can be summed up by what happened the last time Portugal tried to overtake him. In that game against Switzerland at the 2022 World Cup, the Portuguese were leading 5-0 with a quarter of the game remaining. Ramos had scored three goals. Yet instead of celebrating a new hero, the crowd chanted Ronaldo’s name. Sport was over, they had decided. Now they wanted the spectacle, the one they had come to see.
“It’s almost like asking Cristiano himself to realise that he is no longer at the same level,” Oliveira said. “It won’t be the federation or Roberto Martinez who will do it.”
Beyond his Instagram following, that may be the best measure of Ronaldo’s untouchable status. He’s so famous that one country, Germany, is finding it increasingly difficult to organise football matches with him. And he’s so famous that another country, Portugal, is unwilling to allow any football matches to take place without him.
Andres Das Contributed reporting.
