Cristiano Ronaldo asked to be punished without mercy. The Ronaldo ban that came back was 30 days, backdated to the day after he walked out, and it ran out before Portugal’s next match. The angle comes from the Portuguese federation’s disciplinary verdict on 19 October.
The verdict arrived on Monday 19 October. The Portuguese federation’s disciplinary council upheld the charge against Cristiano Ronaldo “in full”, found that he had broken Article 160(1) of its regulations by leaving the national team’s camp, and gave him a 30-day suspension and a fine of €255. The suspension took effect from 1 October, the day of the Denmark match after he walked out, which means he had already served 19 days by the time the verdict landed and will be available when Portugal next play, on 14 November.
Read the sentence against the rule it applies. Under the federation’s regulations, a player who abandons the team without justification “shall be sanctioned with a suspension of one to six months,” plus a fine. Thirty days sits at the very bottom of that range. And the ban ran from the day of the Denmark match, so it covered exactly two matches, both of which Ronaldo had already walked away from: the 4-2 win in Copenhagen on 1 October and the 2-1 win over Norway in Porto three days later. By the time the verdict was announced, most of the suspension had been served without anyone noticing. It ran out before the end of October, with no Portugal match in between.
What makes the verdict interesting is that Ronaldo asked for something harder. In his statement on 6 October he wrote that the federation “must assess the consequences of my actions and punish me for them”. He wrote that “the responsibility is exclusively mine”, and argued that his position as captain “constitutes an aggravating factor”. He asked, in effect, to be treated more strictly than an ordinary player. Before the hearing, a lawyer quoted by the Portuguese paper Record pointed out that the regulations allow sanctions to be reduced for a full admission and for long service, and that even the one-month minimum could be cut to 15 days. The council did not go that far. It also did not go one day above the floor.
There are good reasons for the federation to land where it did, and they are worth stating fairly. Ronaldo admitted everything, apologised to his teammates and the public, and has more than 20 years of service behind him. The federation’s president, Pedro Proença, said everyone at the federation wanted him back once the matter was resolved. A long ban would have punished Portugal as much as its captain, and turned a dressing-room dispute into a national argument. The minimum, backdated, closes the case without costing the team a single match.
But it also means the federation has not answered the question the walkout raised. The dispute was never about whether Ronaldo should be disciplined. It was about whether he starts. Jorge Jesus left him on the bench in Oslo, told him he would not start in Copenhagen, and Gonçalo Ramos scored in all three games Ronaldo missed. The federation’s verdict returns that question, untouched, to the coach. On 14 November Ronaldo is eligible again. Whether he is selected, and whether he starts, is a decision for Jesus, and no disciplinary council can make it for him.
This is the second time in a fortnight that a football institution has chosen the gesture that costs nothing. When Gianni Infantino apologised to the FIFA Council, he gave his critics contrition and no documents. Portugal has given Ronaldo a sanction and no consequence. Both decisions are defensible. Neither settles anything.
The contrast with Lionel Messi is sharper still. Argentina gave Messi a farewell arranged in his honour. Ronaldo, who has promised fans “one or more farewell matches”, now has his eligibility back but not his place. The Ronaldo ban is over, and it was always going to be short. The harder verdict is still to come, and it will be announced in a team sheet, not a press release.
Sources: Al Jazeera, Fox Sports, Associated Press (via NY1 and News4Jax), World Soccer Talk (citing Record).
