According to Cristiano Ronaldo, the US Major League Soccer (MLS) is completely inferior to Saudi Arabia’s Saudi Pro League, despite the presence of Messi and other stars from Barcelona.
Ronaldo just scored a double in Al Nassr’s 4-0 win over Al Wasl (UAE) in the AFC Champions League Elite group stage on February 4. With that, the Portuguese star, who will turn 40 on February 5, now has a total of 923 goals in his career to date, continuing to move closer to the milestone of scoring 1,000 goals.
“When I decided to come here (Saudi Pro League), I didn’t think the league would grow so quickly. In the next 1 or 2 years, this league will go to the top even more.
People don’t know, they think and talk too much. I’m sorry that the reality is different when people talk about Saudi Arabia and when they talk about America. Is MLS a worse league than the Saudi Pro League? Obviously, but because it’s Saudi Arabia, it’s looked down upon,” Ronaldo affirmed in a recent interview with journalist Edu Aguirre on La Sexta (Spain).
Previously, Ronaldo also publicly criticized Ligue 1 (France) as not being able to compare to the Saudi Pro League. However, this tournament has continuously responded to the Portuguese star through the indicators of viewership, competitiveness and attractiveness on television of the tournament is much higher than the tournament in Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi Pro League has spent heavily on player purchases over the past two years since Ronaldo joined. However, the competition is limited to the top four or five clubs, most of which are owned by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund. These are Al Hilal, Al Ittihad, Al Ahli and Al Nassr, where Ronaldo is playing. In the 2024-2025 season, Al Qadsiah will emerge, owned by Saudi Arabia’s major oil and gas group Saudi Aramco.
Despite spending big and bringing in the most expensive star of the winter transfer window, striker Jhon Duran from Aston Villa for a fee of more than 80 million USD, the Saudi Pro League still cannot attract many viewers.
Messi has a completely different direction than Ronaldo, when he came to MLS to enjoy the remaining stage of his career.
On average, matches here attract between 6,000 and 7,000 spectators. In particular, there were matches with only 315 spectators (the match between Al Riyadh Club and Al Khaleej with a score of 2-0 on January 9). The match with the highest number of spectators was the match between Al Ittihad and Al Nassr with a score of 2-1 on December 6, 2024 with 55,120 spectators.
In MLS, Messi’s presence has created a huge attraction for the tournament. Most of the matches featuring the Argentine star attract a large audience. In the 2024 season, the American league broke the viewership record with more than 11.2 million spectators coming to the stadium, an average of 23,371 spectators/match.
Before the new 2025 season, Messi and his teammates continued to cause a stir in training matches, such as the match against Club America on January 19, which attracted 45,262 spectators, the match against Universitario in Peru on January 30, which attracted 80,000 viewers, and the recent 3-1 win over Sporting San Miguelito in Panama, with 32,000 spectators filling the stadium.
