In less than five months, the Brazilian, owner of both clubs, managed to take his teams out in the highest category of each country.
Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima has achieved another miracle in football. In less than five months after having managed to return Valladolid to the highest category of Spanish football, he is now celebrating with his other club: Cruzeiro, the same one in which he began his career as a professional footballer. .
After becoming Belo Horizonte team president in December 2021, he set himself the goal of restructuring the team and bringing it back to the Brazilian Serie A.
And he achieved that goal. The promotion was secured on Wednesday night after Cruzeiro beat Vasco da Gama 3-0 . With this victory, the blue team reached 68 points, obtaining an advantage of 15 over Gremio, second in the table, and 20 over the team of Carlos Palacios, who occupy the fourth and last place in promotion.
After completing the return to the first division in 2023, Ronaldo celebrated the achievement. “It’s just the icing on the cake. We are working hard to earn this. This night was very special. Congratulations to the players, to the technical staff, to my administrative team, but above all to this fan who suffered for almost three years. “, he commented.
“Today is the day of glory. Thank you, I want to thank you for your support. Now let’s celebrate a few days and start thinking about next year “, he added in statements collected by Globo Esporte.
Purchase and restructuring
On December 18, 2021, Ronaldo became the owner of the Cruzeiro, having from the start the mission to return it to the highest category in Brazil.
“I say I have a lot to contribute. We have a lot of work ahead of us and the ambition to do something big with Cruzeiro “, he declared on his arrival.
And from the start, everything was complicated by the legacy left by previous administrations. “It’s a tragic scenario, but we have to stop the bleeding. Cruzeiro is a patient in serious condition, he is in intensive care and we are offering the necessary treatment to get him out of this condition “, he underlined in his official presentation.
There, he pointed out that the institution’s debt “is worse” than he imagined, so an “efficient” and “sustainable” model should be proposed.
“Every day we open a drawer, we find a negative surprise and we are always in this process of analysis (…) Discovering the size of the hole that exists”, he continued.
This debt reached an amount close to 25 million dollars which had to be renegotiated with the creditors. This was largely due to a budget that exceeded forecast revenue. “Running a club like this doesn’t cross my mind ”.
For the same reason, he announced at the time an agreement with players to lower his salary. “We managed to reduce the budget to 35 million reais ($6.2 million), almost three times less. We have a lot of work to do, a lot of cuts to make. It’s time for unpopular actions, but necessary for the club to become great again ”.
In the end, all these measures allowed Cruzeiro to clinch promotion and return to Serie A.
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Source: Latercera
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