Last week, Ronaldo announced his return to Manchester United, the club where he first arrived as an unknown 18 year old in 2003, before leaving as a legend in 2009 with three Premier League titles, one Champions League, two League Cups and one FA Cup to his name. At the age of 36, he is not only now significantly wealthier and more famous, with 32 trophies, five Fifa Player Of The Year awards and joint top scorer in men’s international football, with 109 goals, but he has also acquired an over the top collection of ultra-expensive timepieces.
These dazzlingly blinged-out rarities shine as brightly as his phosphorus white teeth, slicked back hair and irrepressible grin. Take, for instance, the 18 karat white gold Rolex GMT Master Ice festooned with 30 carats of diamonds across the bezel and bracelet, which he wore to the Dubai Globe Soccer Awards in 2020. Valued at £371,000, it represents one of the less expensive timepieces in the Ronaldo line-up.
He is nothing if not a fan of horological novelties with jaw-dropping price-tags. While every football manager worth his salt has at some point worn a Hublot Big Bang on the touchline, Ronaldo’s Hublot Masterpiece MP-09 Tourbillon Bi-Axis, fully set with baguette-cut diamonds on the case, rose-cut diamond crown and price tag of $1.2 million, is in a totally different league. The watch’s self-winding in-house calibre and five-day power reserve shows that there’s also some serious watching prowess underneath all that flash. It’s a bit like the player himself, who despite being something of a show pony, delivers the goods at critical moments with metronomic regularity.
But it was with the start of his relationship with Jacob Arabo, AKA Jacob The Jeweller, for whom Ronaldo was an ambassador in 2013, that the sparkles got dialled up to eleven. As a result of this partnership came many excellently over the top timepieces, including the Jacob & Co Grand Baguette Diamond. The 47mm pentagon-shaped 18 karat white gold case, with 360 invisibly set baguette cut diamonds, is basically a jewel encrusted hockey puck that can tell the time in five different zones. Whether it comes to football success or over the top watches, in the world of CR7, it seems that more really is more.
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