Promotion!

June 19th, 2021| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro. The famous Portuguese professional soccer star, forward for Juventus and captain of the Portugal national team. One of the best players in the world, and though by some to be one of the G.O.A.T.! The man has won the Ballon d’Or award (one of the most prestigious individual awards for soccer players) five times (Lionel Messi of Argentina has won it six times), and the European Golden Boot (presented to the leading goalscorer in the top division of every European national league) four times (again, second only to Messi: six). Ronaldo is one of the few players to have made over a thousand game appearances, scoring over 800 goals for club and nation.

The guy is one of the most marketable and famous athletes of the world, ranked the world’s highest-paid athlete by Forbes in 2016 and 2017. Time included him on their list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2014. He is the first footballer, as well as only the third sportsman, to earn $1 billion in an athletic career.

So well-known is this dude that a few years ago, on a visit to India, Portugal Prime Minister António Costa presented Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a signed Ronaldo jersey. He has his own fashion boutique, Ronaldo does—not Mr. Modi!—CR7 (the soccer star’s initials and his jersey number).

Ronaldo was born and raised in Madeira, Portugal. So Madeira Airport is the Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport. And, of course, Ronaldo has his own likeness represented in wax at Madame Tussauds London.

Last week, during a Euro 2020 press conference in Budapest, our man CR7 sat down at the interview table before cameras. Right in front of him were two bottles of Coca-Cola and a bottle of water.

(You should know that CR is a health nut.)

So what did he do? Rather irritated, he took the two bottles of the caffeinated brown beverage and moved them away, out of sight of the cameras. Lifting up the bottle of water, he exclaimed in Portuguese, “Água!”

Coca-Cola is one of the official sponsors of Euro 2020. But by the end of the press conference, Coca-Cola’s shares had dropped 1.6%, from $56.10 to $55.22. That took off a cool $4 billion off the beverage behemoth’s market value (from $242 billion to $238 billiion), with shares sinking another 0.6% the next day to $55.08. All with one word from CR: “Água!” (and some action)! CR is a pop culture colossus, boasting almost 300 million Instagram followers, perhaps explaining the effect of his utterance.

A Euro 2020 spokesperson:

Players are offered water, alongside Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, on arrival at our press conferences. But everyone is entitled to their drink preferences.”

A day later, Manchester United and France player Paul Pogba appeared to follow Ronaldo’s lead during his press conference. Pogba, a Muslim, moved a bottle of Heineken (another Euro 2020 sponsor) from his desk. However, he made no comment as he did so. And I don’t know what happened to the beer company’s market value.

The importance of proclamation.

My mouth is filled with Your praise
[and] all day Your splendor. …
My mouth will recount Your righteousness,
[and] all day Your deliverance ….
I [will] announce Your strength to [the next] generation,
[and] to all who are to come, Your mighty deeds,
and Your righteousness, God, unto the height [of heaven].
You who have done great things—
God, who is like You?
Psalm 71:8, 15, 18–19

And may the valuation of our great God go up!

SOURCES:
The Guardian