Portuguese football star Cristiano Ronaldo has expressed his desire to meet US President Donald Trump and speak to him about how they could work together to promote world peace.
In the second part of his wide-ranging interview with British journalist Piers Morgan, the 40-year-old Al-Nassr forward confessed his admiration for Trump.
“If the world is at peace, that’s our goal,” Ronaldo said. “He’s one of the people who can change or help change the world. And that’s my main objective: to meet Trump and talk about world peace. If you can make it happen, he’s someone I’d really like to sit down with.”
“I hope to sit down with him someday because he’s one of those people I really like. I think he can make things happen, and I respect people like that.”
Earlier this year, European Council President, António Costa, offered Trump a Portugal football jersey signed by Ronaldo during a meeting held on the sidelines of the G7 Summit.
The jersey, bearing Cristiano Ronaldo’s name and his iconic number 7, was autographed by the player himself, along with a handwritten message: “To President Donald J. Trump. Playing for peace.”
Despite his admiration for Trump, Ronaldo believes that he is more famous than the US president. For Ronaldo, few people reach his level of recognition – only icons such as Princess Diana, Nelson Mandela, and Michael Jackson, he suggested, could compare in global fame.
Before wrapping up the conversation on Trump, Ronaldo joked with Morgan about what could come next: “I hope the next time we talk it’s not in another three years. Imagine – the three of us together: me, you, and Trump at a table. That would be fun. If it were at the White House, even better.”
The interview also touched upon the death of shocking death of his national team teammate, Diogo Jota. Ronaldo revealed he cried privately after learning of teammate Jota’s fatal car accident in July, and said he didn’t attend the funeral because he wanted to support the family away from cameras, explaining: “If I go, the attention goes to me. I don’t want to be part of that world.”
