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Countless legal problems, half a year in prison, and a bank account holding less than $7. Sadly, Ronaldinho's golden retirement has instead been a total train wreck. He was worth $90 million when he retired in 2015. Although, despite
Ronaldinho's post-retirement life spiraled from football legend to legal troubles, financial ruin, and criminal charges.
Key Takeaways
- Ronaldinho's poor financial decisions and lifestyle choices severely impacted his post-retirement life.
- Legal troubles, including fake passport use and unpaid taxes, led to imprisonment and asset seizures.
- Attempts to recover financially through cryptocurrency ventures were unsuccessful and controversial.
- His football career decline was accelerated by injuries and lack of discipline.
- Despite setbacks, there are indications Ronaldinho may be working to improve his situation.
What the video covers
- Ronaldinho retired in 2015 with a net worth of $90 million but struggled with financial mismanagement and legal issues.
- He lost a Coca-Cola sponsorship after promoting Pepsi and developed a partying lifestyle that hurt his football career.
- Injuries and lack of training led to a decline in performance, missing multiple World Cups and games.
- His final club stint at Fluminense ended prematurely due to poor performance and fan dissatisfaction.
- Ronaldinho purchased 57 properties but faced heavy fines and unpaid taxes, resulting in property seizures and passport confiscations.
- He was arrested in Paraguay for attempting to enter the country with a fake passport, spending nearly six months in jail.
- While imprisoned, he participated in a football tournament and was eventually released with a fine he could not pay.
- Ronaldinho attempted to rebuild his finances by launching a failed cryptocurrency and promoting other questionable crypto projects.
- His involvement in crypto scams led to congressional hearings and public criticism.
- Despite his downfall, some signs suggest he may have partially rebuilt his life, as indicated by private jet photos.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction: Ronaldinho's Post-Retirement Troubles
- 00:52Sponsorship Loss and Partying Lifestyle
- 01:43Impact of Lifestyle on Football Performance
- 02:30Injuries and Decline in Form
- 03:17Attempts at Comeback and Final Club Stint
- 04:10Property Purchases and Legal Issues
- 05:49Fake Passport Incident and Imprisonment
- 07:19Life in Prison and Release
- 08:15Cryptocurrency Ventures and Public Criticism
- 09:04Current Status and Possible Recovery
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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having a salary of nearly 300K per week, Ronaldinho showed through a Coca-Cola sponsorship he was absolutely atrocious at handling his money. Coke paid him 750K per year under one condition: that Ronaldinho would only drink their beverage. Well, just a couple of months
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after signing the deal, Ronaldinho instead promoted Coke's biggest competitor. The Coca-Cola ambassador shot himself in the foot when he rocked up to a press conference sipping on a can of Pepsi. As a result, Coke dropped him and stated the
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sponsorship had become embarrassing, assisted by Ronaldinho's poor performances on the pitch, as he'd become more interested in wild parties. In one example, he was scheduled to play against Man United but instead the night before partied in a bar until 3:00 a.m. A
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Barcelona board member added, "Ronaldinho plays bongos until 2 in the morning every night. Everyone knows we have a discipline problem. Ronaldinho is getting older, partying all the time. How do we stop it?" Well, stopping Ronaldinho's partying was basically impossible, as he
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even negotiated a nightclub clause into one of his contracts, allowing him to party at least two nights per week. Incredibly, he wound up breaking the contract, as two nights of partying simply wasn't enough, justifying his actions by stating a football player has
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to have a normal life as a person and as a sportsman. But according to his teammate Jerome Looy, this lifestyle was seriously hurting his skills. Ronaldinho didn't train any day of the week and would just turn up on a Friday for the
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game on Saturday. I think he was trying to follow in the steps of Roy Mario, who would also go out every night, but he didn't have the same success. Without a consistent training regimen, Ronaldinho began to experience constant injuries.
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Beginning in March 2008, he was off the field for one full year, missing 30 different games coming from four different injuries. In the meantime, Ronaldinho started gaining weight, for which he was clowning on by the media. One article wrote, "Over the past year, Ronald
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hasn't looked like the player who led Barcelona to two straight league titles." Another article mentioned, "The former best player in the universe has already become an increasingly distant memory for the Brazilian national team." And true or not, he gets frequently described as past
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it without much debate. In 2002, Ronaldinho helped carry Brazil to a World Cup win, but by 2010 he wasn't even chosen to play on the team at all. Understandably, Ronaldinho wasn't happy, believing he was now better than ever,
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stating, "I am back now to how I was. In fact, I think I'm even stronger now. Everything seems easier now. I want to play in a further two World Cups." His harsh World Cup rejection forced Ronaldinho to get back into shape. A
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foreign post from 2012 titled "Ronaldinho goes back to 2004/05 weight explained." Apparently, he's now gone back to his ideal weight of 80 kilos. On top of this, a Gol do article proclaimed Ronaldinho is officially back among the world's
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best. Although, as you might expect, this didn't last long. Throughout 2013, Ronaldinho missed another 24 games resulting from two separate injuries. He therefore again wasn't selected for Brazil's 2014 World Cup team, and by 2015 at the age of 35, Ronaldinho's career was
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pretty much finished. He signed an 18-month contract with Fluminense, although after failing to score in nine games and being booed by his own fans during a league game, Ronaldinho's contract was terminated after only two months. The club
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publicly announced, "We were straight with him and told him it wouldn't work for us, so we decided releasing him was the right thing to do. We are somewhat frustrated. When he arrived, we expected he could do for us what he did for so
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many other clubs. That's what you think when you sign a player. He didn't do well in Mexico, but we took our chances by bringing him back to Rio, thinking he would do well again." Ronaldinho clearly didn't, but he now had $90 million to
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retire very comfortably. He'd hire his brother Roberto to be his manager, who confirmed Ronaldinho's retirement, stating, "He has stopped. It is ended. Let's do something pretty big and nice after the Russia World Cup," where Ronaldinho was spotted looking extremely happy behind
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the scenes. However, his life had already begun to fall apart. Ronaldinho used his earnings to purchase 57 properties, one of which being a lakehouse in the Riverside city of Porto Alra. From the house, he built a warren dock without
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realizing it was totally illegal. As a result, he was fined 1.7 million US dollars, although Ronaldinho refused to pay. It was then revealed he also owed a further $2 million in unpaid property taxes, and as a result, Ronaldinho has had 57 properties
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seized and his Brazilian and Spanish passports confiscated over unpaid taxes and fines. Ronaldinho haggled the fishing fine down to 1.5 million but ultimately still failed to pay, leading the Brazilian government to permanently take he and his brother's passports. Now, this
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was extra inconvenient as they wanted to take a holiday down at Paraguay. So they devised a genius plan: create a fake Paraguay passport for one of Brazil's most famous people, known for playing on the Brazilian national team. As he tried
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to enter Paraguay, border protection obviously noticed him instantly, placing Ronaldinho in jail awaiting trial. Imagine not only being one of the most famous footballers in the world but also one of the most unique looking ones and trying to use a fake passport in South
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America. Bravo, Ronnie! But wait, it still gets dumber. It is unclear why the former footballer entered Paraguay using the passport, considering Brazilians can enter the neighboring country using their national ID card. Basically, Ronaldinho could have gone to Paraguay
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without using a passport at all. To add a cherry on top of the cake, Ronaldinho claimed he didn't know the passport was fake and believed he had been given his Paraguayan passport as a gift, assuming it was an honorary type document of no
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real value and gave it to an official without thinking when he reached Paraguay because it was the first thing he got out of his bag. He was therefore even roasted by his own lawyer. Ronaldinho wasn't aware that he was committing a
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crime because he didn't know they were fake documents. "He's stupid," but the court didn't buy it for a second, and Ronaldinho was jailed for almost half a year. Whilst inside, the prison hosted a football tournament, leading teams across the
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prison to rail with one another over which would have Ronaldinho on their team. He'd win the final game by scoring 11 goals, eventually leading a judge to conclude there is no indication that he has any personal characteristics or
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criminal behavior that would put society at risk, and Ronaldinho was therefore released from prison with a $200,000 fine. However, he had no hope of paying this. In fact, the reason he and his brother initially had their passports seized was because an investigation into
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their bank accounts revealed a balance of just 24.63 Brazilian real, or $5.9. Ronaldinho's plan to rebuild his life was to launch a cryptocurrency, releasing the Ronaldinho Soccer Coin project, which gained just 61 Instagram followers. With his own coin failing,
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Ronaldinho instead promoted other shady crypto projects, always being met with understandable critique. "Is this a translation for you? A bankrupt again?" In case you forgot, here are all the crypto projects you pump and dumped over the years, only leading to even more
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problems. Ronaldinho denies part in alleged 61 million crypto scam. At a congressional hearing, his likeness had been used to promote a cryptocurrency which promised a return of 2% per day. After the crypto inevitably turned out to be a scam, Ronaldinho was brought
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before the government, although he claimed he was never partnered with the company and it used his name and image without...
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had a history of involvement in these kinds of shady projects additionally ronaldino had failed to appear before two previous hearings related to the inquiry he said we conditions meant he was not able to attend his involvement is up for interpretation but it seems he
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was sufficiently rattled as he' pivot to promoting traditional products where he'd only experience even more issues Ronaldinho posted to his Instagram this is a sad time for anyone who likes Brazilian soccer it's hard to find the energy to watch the games this is
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perhaps one of the worst teams in recent years it has no respectable leaders just average players for the most part I've never seen a situation as bad as this I repeat our performan has been one of the worst things I have ever seen it's a
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disgrace the post was shared to Reddit and people weren't happy criticism is fine but straight up quitting on the national team in an official post is something to say the least imagine your idol saying that about you and your
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teammates killing their confidence well only one day later ronaldino returned to Instagram revealing the nasty message was actually an ad I would never haveand in Brazilian football never and I would never say the things you saw in fact
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these words came from real Brazilian fans they are real comments I saw on the internet guys what our boys need is support at this time that's why I joined rexona in this Movement we are asking everyone to send messages of support #
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rexona does not abandon you he's danam Brook isn't he Ronaldinho's finances haven't been discussed recently but judging by photos of him taking private jets it seems he's rebuilt his life at least to some extent
Topics:Ronaldinhofootball legendretirementfinancial troubleslegal problemsfake passportimprisonmentcryptocurrency scamfootball career declineBrazilian footballer
