Italy's most successful team are about to
become a lot more popular worldwide thanks
to the signing of the five-time Ballon d'Or
winner There are two strands to the Cristiano
Ronaldo transfer. The first is on a football
level. Juventus signing Ronaldo should give
the club a better chance of winning the
Champions League. They do not need him in order to win Serie
A. They have done that seven times in a
row without him and are unlikely to meet
much resistance this season either. Listen to anyone connected with Juventus
speak and they’ll tell you the objective is the
Champions League. “As a club we have made a step forward
and we want to make it count in the
Champions League, which has been set as
our objective in the next few years,” vice
president Pavel Nedved told idnes.cz this week. But it’s difficult to plot out success in a
competition so short. There are only 13
matches – less than 33 per cent of a league
season.

and an outcome can easily be
determined by an injury, a bad call, an off-
day. That doesn’t happen so much over the course of a nine-month season. Ronaldo won’t guarantee the Champions
League for Juventus but he is as close as a
guarantee as you can get. Real Madrid have won four of the last five
available Champions League titles. The only
one they missed out on was in 2015 when
Juventus beat them in the semi-finals. But
every other year, Real have carried off the
glory. Every year Ronaldo has been the top scorer. He has 121 goals in all in the Champions
League now. Seventy of those have come in
the past five seasons. And when the big
moment comes, you can bet your bottom
dollar on Ronaldo making the difference.
Granted, that hasn’t always been in finals – although he ripped Juventus apart in Cardiff
with two goals in 2017 – but no Real Madrid
title-winning season has passed without
Ronaldo having a significant say.

Juventus thought they were buying a man in
Gonzalo Higuain in 2016 who would get
them closer than ever to securing that
elusive European crown. It didn’t happen.
Higuain wasn’t good enough to displace
Ronaldo as the centre-piece of the Madrid attack and again the Portugal captain has
come to show him how it’s done. And now for the second strand. It will not
necessarily be the case that Juventus have
to first win the Champions League before
going on to conquer the world. They can do
both in tandem. Conquering the world is not only about
winning football matches and football
competitions, it’s about becoming the best-
known team on the planet. To put it bluntly,
Cristiano Ronaldo is far, far more famous
than the team he plays for. And that would be true of any team. He is a
one-man industry with a line in everything
from underwear and shoes to hotels and
fragrances. If you were to craft a list of the most famous
people in the world right now, you wouldn’t
get far beyond the top three before

including
Ronaldo. While Juventus will always be the number
one team in Italy, that’s not the case outside
the Italian borders. Teams like Manchester
United, Barcelona and Real Madrid are far
more popular worldwide and their
advantages in overseas markets leave Juve at a distinct disadvantage. Ronaldo will help
shore up that gap. Where Ronaldo goes, fans follow. In the
days following the announcement of his
transfer to Turin, Juventus’s popularity on
social media soared. At the same time, Real
Madrid actually witnessed a dip in their
matchday attendances. “From 5 July to 17 July, Juventus' Twitter
and Instagram followers increased by about
15% and 25%, respectively, marking an
increase from around 7 million to more than
8 million in terms of total Twitter followers
(considering the main Italian page and the English page), and an increase from 10.1
million to 12 5 million followers for their
Instagram account,” noted KPMG ’s Ronaldo Economics report.

It's the type of move Paris St-Germain have
attempted with Neymar and to an extent
they have increased in popularity. But
Neymar with no Ballons d’Or and Ronaldo
with five are still some way apart in
pedigree. Juve have signed the real thing. Juventus might not have much room to grow
in Italy but the battle for football’s
forthcoming fortunes will be fought by
Europe’s biggest clubs in regions including
the United States and many parts of Asia. 'There’s no player bigger than the team'
might be one of football’s old truisms but it
belongs in another age. Ronaldo absolutely
is bigger than Juventus just as Neymar is
bigger than PSG. There has been a shift in global football
consciousness towards the veneration of
the individual more than ever before. There
are many ways to explain this – from a trend
towards the celebrity in general to a
communication age where fans can keep up with their favourite stars at their
convenience.

Older fans tend to lament the trends of
younger kids not supporting their local
teams but this generation are being raised
on the internet. Real Madrid, Barcelona,
these are their local teams. Through FUT and Football Manager and
Fantasy Football games, casual fans will
identify with players who have brought them
success and happiness in the virtual world
more so than any connection to an average
team who happen to be based in geographical proximity. Fans are attracted to success; they want
highlights, they want goals and rightly so.
Ronaldo ticks all the boxes. “The Bianconeri need to strongly capitalize
on the acquisition of Ronaldo, especially in
merchandising and sponsoring,” notes KPMG . “The club still lag behind the main European
superpowers in this area. In 2016/17
Manchester United FC, Barcelona FC, Real
Madrid CF and FC Bayern München
recorded €320 million, €288 million, €280
million and €344 million, respectively, more than twice as much Juventus FC’s figure of
€120 million.”

KPMG also reports that more than 40 per cent of Juventus’s current sponsors are
Italian based and – unlike Manchester United
– they haven’t expanded their presence by
hooking up with regional partners around the
world. Juventus have already been delivered an
insight into the Ronaldo effect. A mere
rumour of his signing sent the organisation’s
share price skyrocketing by around 32 per
cent in the fortnight leading up to his arrival. By capitalising on his image and his
overwhelming strong social media presence,
Juventus should be able to grow their brand. He has over 141 million followers on
Instagram – more than anyone in the world
other than Selena Gomez - and commands
around €300,000 for a single sponsored
post. Juventus – meanwhile – have 15.6
million followers with that figure rising sharply in the days and weeks since
Ronaldo joined. Ronaldo will allow Juventus reach new fans,
customers, users, whatever you want to call
it, on a whole new level.

“Monetising the inherent value in social
media is crucial for clubs in order to stay
competitive and to enhance their
profitability,” says KPMG . “Club channels also provide a unique setting
for partners and sponsors to activate their
brands and, ultimately, increase their
sponsorship value or return on investment.
This is the area in which Juventus FC will
have to make a major effort to fully leverage Ronaldo’s investment.” It’s into countries like Indonesia, India,
Malaysia, Pakistan and Vietnam, according
to KPMG , that Ronaldo can carry the name Juventus. With his near 123 million
Facebook fans, Ronaldo has a reach far
greater than any club.


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