The Brazilian soccer star Ronaldo signed a deal on Tuesday with the Corinthians soccer team.
The athlete, who is finishing his physical therapy and recovery from his third knee surgery, will spend the 2009 season playing for the team out of Sao Paulo.
The reaction throughout Brazil has been widespread. With the news of the deal, the Corinthians club already began to personalize and sell jerseys of the player.
Ronaldo will wear jersey number nine. In just the first few hours of the news, the team already sold more than 12,000 U.S. dollars in merchandise related to Ronaldo. The team looks to make a small fortune off the player's name.
Other fans of the player throughout Brazil were revolted with the news. Ronaldo spent his entire recovery program with his former team of Flamengo. Many faithful Ronaldo fans were expecting that he would return to his old team. However, upon hearing the news, many Flamengo fans began to burn old jerseys of Ronaldo, tear down posters of the athlete and could not help but feel betrayed.
With Ronaldo's help, Corinthians head coach Mano Menezes will hope to make a strong comeback into the first division. Corinthians fell to the second division of the 2008 Brazilian soccer championship after a poor 2007 performance. However, the team proved themselves to be a great team and won the second division in this year's tournament. In 2009, the team will reappear in the first division, armed with Ronaldo.
Ronaldo is scheduled to go through with a routine physical on Friday in his official debut at the club. The negotiations to bring Ronaldo to Corinthians have been in the works for the last couple of weeks.
(Xinhua News Agency December 11, 2008)
