Cristiano Ronaldo will visit the White House on the same day as the visit of the Saudi Crown Prince

A US official confirmed that soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo will visit the White House on Tuesday, the same day as the leader of Saudi Arabia, where the Portuguese currently plays the game.

The White House official did not say that Ronaldo was part of the official delegation of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

However, his heroic role in the Saudi Football League has made him the face of the country’s modernization drive under the Crown Prince, the country’s de facto ruler, who wants to reduce the country’s dependence on oil revenues by diversifying into other areas including sports and tourism.

The footballer is not believed to have visited the United States since 2016.

Meanwhile, he faced a sexual assault allegation. Kathryn Mayorga claimed that Ronaldo raped her in a hotel room in Las Vegas in 2009, which he denied.

“I vehemently deny the accusations against me,” he said in a 2018 statement. “Rape is a heinous crime that goes against everything I am and believe in.”

In 2019, US prosecutors said Ronaldo would not face charges because the allegations could not be proven.

In early 2023, Ronaldo moved to Saudi Arabia when he became the face of the Saudi Professional League and captain of Al-Nassr – the football club owned by the sovereign wealth fund PIF headed by the Crown Prince.

In an industry where players are paid extraordinary amounts of money, Ronaldo’s salary deal with Saudi Arabia was astronomical. The footballer was reportedly paid $200 million (£152 million) a year – or more than half a million dollars a day.

Then in June this year, he signed a new two-year contract worth a total of $400m (£300m) and became football’s first billionaire player, according to Bloomberg, with a net worth of $1.4bn.

That’s a lot of money for a 40-year-old footballer at the end of his career.

But, according to Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, Saudi Arabia has “invested heavily in high-profile events and individuals to put the kingdom on the map” in terms of sports and tourism in its quest for modernity.

Ronaldo referred to Prince Mohammed as “our president” in an interview with broadcaster Piers Morgan.

Earlier this month, he appeared at a Ministry of Tourism event in Riyadh where he spoke about development projects in the Kingdom and his hopes for the 2034 FIFA World Cup to be held in Saudi Arabia.

As for meeting Trump, Vakil says: “The American president loves shiny things, and Ronaldo is a shiny thing.”

Although the footballer has loftier ambitions to meet Washington – world peace.

In July, European Council President Antonio Costa handed Trump a Portuguese shirt signed by Ronaldo that read: “To President Donald J. Trump, Play for Peace.”

“I hope to sit down with him one day because he’s one of those people I really love,” he told Morgan.

“I think he can achieve things and I respect people like that.”