Brazilian football legend Ronaldo, who has won the World Cup twice, has decided not to run for the presidency of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) because he did not get enough support from regional federations.
In a social media post, the two-time Ballon d’Or winner said that after expressing his wish to become a candidate for the CBF presidency, he has now officially taken back his decision.
Ronaldo explained that since most of the people who have the power to decide think football is already in good hands, his opinion does not matter.
“After publicly declaring my desire to be a candidate for the presidency of the CBF during the next election, I’m officially withdrawing this intention. If the majority of those who have the power to decide feel that football is in good hands, it doesn’t matter what I think,” said Ronaldo.
The 48-year-old had earlier announced in December that he wanted to lead the CBF because he believed that Brazilian football was going through a deep crisis.
However, 23 out of 27 regional federations in Brazil did not support him and refused to listen to his ideas. Instead, they showed their support for the re-election of the current CBF president, Ednaldo Rodrigues, in 2026.
Rodrigues has been criticized for how he handled the national team’s coaching situation after Tite left following Brazil’s quarter-final exit in the 2022 World Cup.
At first, Rodrigues wanted to appoint Carlo Ancelotti as the new coach, but the Italian coach decided to stay with Real Madrid. Finally, Dorival Junior was made the national team coach at the beginning of last year.
Even though Ronaldo had a great football career and wanted to help Brazilian football, his dream of leading the CBF could not be fulfilled because the regional federations preferred to support the current president for another term.
