Cristiano Ronaldo To Have Madeira Airport Named After Him As Reward For Winning The Euro 2016


Cristiano Ronaldo has been having quite the winning streak. He has won the Champions League as Real Madrid FC’s star forward and the Euro Cup as Portugal’s captain and lifeblood.

And now he is to have the airport of his native island Madeira named after him to honor the success of the national team led by the local hero.

Ronaldo, who was in town to open his own hotel in Madeira, is naturally grateful, as apparent in his social media update.

Madeira island’s capital city of Funchal — which already has a museum and a statue — played host to the grand opening of Ronaldo’s Pestana CR7 Funchal hotel on July 22.

The opening, attended by Dionisio Pestana and Miguel Albuquerque who is President of the regional government of Madeira, saw a laid back Ronaldo accompanied by his son, Cristiano Ronaldo Junior.

The harborside hotel has 48 rooms, according to The Mirror, and is an exercise in cutting edge art deco architecture infused with modern touches.

Ronaldo and his son, with Dionisio Pestana and Miguel Albuquerque at the hotel opening. [Photo by Octavio Passos/Getty Images]
According to the Daily Mail, the 31-year-old star is back for a short spell at his birthplace of Funchal after a post-Euro holiday at Ibiza. The announcement that the airport at Funchal would be named after the football hero came soon after the inauguration of the hotel.

Albuquerque has confirmed that the airport will be renamed Madeira Cristiano Ronaldo Airport.

Portuguese news outlet Mundo Deportivo reported that the rechristening of the Aeroporto da Madeira is meant as a reward and a tribute to the national team’s 2016 victory at the Euros.

A view of the pool and terrace of the Pestana CR7 Funchal hotel owned by Cristiano Ronaldo. [Photo by Octavio Passos/Getty Images]
Things have certainly turned around since tearful fans watched a tearful Ronaldo being taken off from the Stade de France field on a stretcher after the first 20 minutes of the Euro final. Not only did Portugal stage a dramatic victory against France, Ronaldo himself returned to the benches in spite of his knee injury and played the part of an assistant coach, screaming directions and encouraging his players on the field.

The terrace of his new hotel not only looks out to the stunning sea but also to Ronaldo’s role as a hotelier — a hobby that, as a world class sportsman, he is not alone in picking, as pointed out by The Guardian.

Wimbledon winner Andy Murray bought Cromlix House near his childhood home of Dunblane in Britain, and while Murray reasoned his purchase with the promise of the good the hotel would do to the neighbourhood’s economy, Ronaldo’s motivations, as quoted by Simon Burnton, remain firmly fixed to his future.

The hotel will expand, with branches in Madrid and Lisbon soon.

The new CR7 Museum in Madeira. [Photo by Octavio Passos/Getty Images]
With a signature fragrance as well as a clothes line already to his name, the hotel will add to the buildup of the gigantic CR7 brand. As signified by the fact that the airport is to be renamed after Ronaldo, the fascination surrounding Ronaldo finds new ways of expressing itself in Madeira.

A case in point of this is the new museum dedicated to Cristiano, which has everything from gilded plates to caricatures of the player to a life-size statue that fans have been posing with for photographs.

Cristiano Ronaldo might call the list of his achievements at the age of 31, “a little strange,” but with an airport and a luxury hotel to his name already it is proof that the sun never quite sets on the Madeira cost for Ronaldo.

[Photo by Octavio Passos/Getty Images]

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