{"id":371703,"date":"2024-02-29T20:26:05","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T21:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=371703"},"modified":"2024-02-29T23:05:21","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T23:05:21","slug":"ronaldo-banned-over-offensive-saudi-gesture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=371703","title":{"rendered":"Ronaldo banned over offensive Saudi gesture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cristiano Ronaldo<\/a> has been suspended for one match for making an offensive gesture during a Saudi Arabia league game while playing for Al Nassr in the Saudi Pro League.<\/p>\n

After Al-Nassr defeated Riyadh rival Al-Shabab 3-2 on Sunday, video footage appeared to show Ronaldo cupping his ear and repeatedly thrusting his hand forward near his pelvis, in a gesture that seemed to be aimed at Al-Shabab fans.<\/p>\n

Background chants of \u201cMessi", referencing Ronaldo\u2019s longstanding soccer rival Lionel Messi, could be heard.<\/p>\n

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The Disciplinary and Ethics Committee of the Saudi Arabia Football Federation (SAFF) committee announced the ban on social media. Al-Nassr\u2019s next league game is at home to Al-Hazm on Friday.<\/p>\n

The former Real Madrid and Manchester United star will also have to pay a fine of $8208 to Al-Shabab, to cover the costs of the club filing the complaint, and half of that amount to the federation.<\/p>\n

\"Cristiano<\/p>\n

The committee said that the decision was not open to appeal.<\/p>\n

While the incident was not captured by television cameras, the actions of Ronaldo, who scored a first-half penalty in the game, were widely criticised in Saudi Arabia by former players and commentators.<\/p>\n

According to reports in the Saudi Arabia media, the 39-year-old told the committee that the gesture was one of victory and common in Europe.<\/p>\n

It is not the first time that the Portuguese forward has been at the centre of controversy since joining Al-Nassr. Last April, upon leaving the field after a game against Al-Hilal, Ronaldo appeared to grab his genitals as fans chanted Messi\u2019s name. On that occasion, Al-Nassr said that the forward had sustained a groin injury in the match.<\/p>\n

Ronaldo, who moved to the Riyadh-based club in December 2022, has a league-leading 22 goals. His scored the opener against Al Shabab, a first-half penalty.<\/p>\n

Al Nassr is also in the quarter-finals of the Asian Champions League, a tournament it has never won.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cristiano Ronaldo has been suspended for one match for making an offensive gesture during a Saudi Arabia league game while playing for Al Nassr in […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":370854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371703"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=371703"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":371705,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371703\/revisions\/371705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/370854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=371703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=371703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=371703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}