Cristiano Ronaldo was among the guests at a White House dinner on Tuesday hosted by President Donald Trump in honour of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the US.
The football superstar has been the face of the Saudi football league since joining Saudi club Al-Nassr at the end of 2022, reportedly on a $200 (€173) million-a-year contract. In June, Ronaldo signed a two-year extension with the club.
Al-Nassr is majority owned by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund that the crown prince chairs.
Trump thanked the five-time Ballon d’Or winner for attending, to whom he introduced his 19-year-old son Barron to.
“Barron got to meet him. And I think he respects his father a little bit more, now, just the fact that I introduced you,” Trump said.
Besides Ronaldo, other notable guests at the Lavish dinner were Apple CEO Tim Cook,Tesla founder Elon Musk and FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
The dinner event comes in an effort by the two nations to deepen relations. Prince Mohammed’s visit to the White House is his first in seven years, and follows years of diplomatic isolation after Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed by Saudi agents in a consulate office in Istanbul in 2018.
US intelligence agencies believed the crown prince approved the operation, but he has denied any involvement in the killing.
Prior to the dinner, Trump held a warm meeting with the Saudi crown prince, in which he brushed aside questions about Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, as well as slammed criticism over the death of Khashoggi.
When asked about the killing, Trump lashed out at a reporter calling her “fake news”.
“You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that,” Trump said.
During the meeting, Trump lavished plenty of praise at the Saudi crown prince, and announced hundreds of billions of dollars in new Saudi investment in the United States.