Cristiano Ronaldo has come under heavy criticism after seemingly making an offensive gesture following Al Nassr\u2019s 3-2 victory over Al Shabab in a Saudi Pro League match on Sunday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Portuguese star scored a first half penalty, before Brazilian Talisca\u2019s late brace, including a goal four minutes from time, secured the win for Al Nassr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the final whistle, videos posted on social media showed the five-time Ballon d\u2019Or winner cupping his ear and repeatedly thrusting his hand forward near his pelvis, seemingly aimed at rival Al Shabab supporters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the background, chants of \u201cMessi\u201d could be heard, referring to Ronaldo\u2019s longstanding football rival from Argentina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the incident was not captured by television cameras, critcism of the 39-year-old Portuguese has been swift and local media reports say that the Saudi football federation (SAFF) has opened an investigation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ronaldo, who completed a lucrative move to the Riyadh-based club in December 2022<\/strong>, has a league-leading 22 goals this season. Al Nassr trail fellow big-spending rivals Al Hilal by four points, having played a game more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Al-Nassr is also in contention for the Asian Champions League<\/strong> \u2014 a tournament it has never won \u2014 and will play Al-Ain of the United Arab Emirates in the quarterfinals next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cristiano Ronaldo has come under heavy criticism after seemingly making an offensive gesture following Al Nassr\u2019s 3-2 victory over Al Shabab in a Saudi Pro League match on Sunday. The Portuguese star scored a first half penalty, before Brazilian Talisca\u2019s late brace, including a goal four minutes from time, secured the win for Al Nassr. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8792,5569,4173,7207,10808,1725,12758,1911,1791,8485,6732,5247,10197,8126,1273,194,8160,5349,10885,594],"class_list":["post-41704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-al-nassr","tag-arab","tag-argentina","tag-asian","tag-ballon-dor","tag-brazilian","tag-captured","tag-champions-league","tag-cristiano-ronaldo","tag-ear","tag-emirates","tag-football","tag-investigation","tag-match","tag-messi","tag-ronaldo","tag-saudi","tag-social-media","tag-victory","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41706,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41704\/revisions\/41706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}