Cristiano Ronaldo retires as the Donald Trump of football

Cristiano Ronaldo has retired from international football, and the manner of his exit has drawn comparisons to the fall of a petulant, egotistical tyrant.

Portugal are saying a midterm goodbye to one of the greatest footballers of all time.

He is their record goalscorer and a national icon.

The departure of a player who has inspired his own museum in Madeira ought to be a moment of universal adulation.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s international retirement feels nothing like that.

The summer’s World Cup was his last act of any note.

Portugal were beaten in the last 16 by Spain.

The team featured the world’s best left-back and arguably the world’s best midfield of Vitinha, Joao Neves and Bruno Fernandes.

At its spearhead was a man born before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

His presence was only slightly less divisive and immobile.

He is now quitting for good.

This comes weeks after he walked out of camp having not been selected to play against Norway.

For that he was banned for 30 days.

It was an utterly pointless penalty given there were no matches to be played in that period anyway.

To really put their foot down, the Portuguese Federation then fined him the equivalent of £215.

That is roughly what he earns every 26 seconds while seeing out his twilight years in Saudi Arabia.

There is a saying that if the punishment is a fine, the law only applies to the poor.

Normal rules have never applied to Ronaldo full stop.

That is his boon and bane.

The 41-year-old has defied ageing.

He is capable of feats of athleticism unexplained by normal physics.

But it is also what makes the last few years of Ronaldo feel a little Maga.

Long before Folarin Balogun, Fifa was suspending two matches of Ronaldo’s ban for a red card against the Republic of Ireland.

He should have missed the opening games of the World Cup.

Instead he was handed an inexplicable reprieve.

And for the sake of internal Portuguese politics, Roberto Martinez was denied the chance to play a non-geriatric centre-forward.

This left Ronaldo to frequently take fewer touches than anyone else on the pitch.

There followed a Trumpian obsession with social media ratings and his number of followers.

These were presumably more satisfying metrics than the world record 146 goals and 234 caps.

In his farewell video, seen by millions around the world, he acknowledged that his trophies would one day end up in a museum and his records risk being overtaken.

“There is something that time can never erase: the place we hold in people’s hearts,” he said.

In Portugal, it might be true.

Around the world, it is extraordinary that he has managed to leave on his own terms despite the chaos.

The comparison to Donald Trump is not accidental.

Both men built careers on personal brand, defiance of normal rules, and a base that refuses to see flaws.

Both faced moments where the system tried to hold them accountable.

Both emerged with punishments that seemed symbolic rather than real.

Ronaldo’s £215 fine is a rounding error in his world.

His 30-day ban covered a period with no matches.

His reprieve from a World Cup suspension was never fully explained.