80% of Koreans have no plans to root for Ronaldo in future

Cristiano Ronaldo, center, warms the bench during a friendly match between Juventus and K League All-Stars at Seoul World Cup Stadium, Friday. Following the football star's no-show in the match which broke agreements with the event organizer, nearly 80 percent of Korean fans said they would not cheer for him again, according to a survey, Wednesday. / Korea Times photo by Hong Yoon-ki

By Kim Rahn

Eight out of 10 Koreans said they would never cheer for Cristiano Ronaldo of Juventus again, following the recent non-appearance of the football star in a friendly match here, a survey showed, Wednesday.

According to the survey conducted by Realmeter on 501 adults nationwide the previous day, 79.4 percent said they would not root for the footballer again. This answer was the majority among all groups regardless of age, gender, region and job.

Only 9.3 percent of the respondents said they would, with the rest answering they didn't know.

Of the respondents, 230 said they had been Ronaldo's fans, and 85.6 percent of them said they are not anymore.

When asked who is to blame for the no-show, 25.3 percent picked the K League, saying the football body was the de facto host of the match between the Italian football club and the K League All-Stars.

The second-largest number of respondents, or 22.7 percent, said Ronaldo himself is to blame, followed by Juventus, 18.3 percent, and TheFasta, the agency that organized the event on behalf of the K League, 17.3 percent.

In Friday's match where some 63,000 Korean football fans came to see the megastar play, the Juventus players arrived late and delayed the kick-off for an hour, and Ronaldo only warmed the bench ― both breaches of contract according to the K League and TheFasta.

On Monday, the K League sent a letter of protest to the Italian club for its “careless” and “arrogant” behavior that disappointed and angered not only the football body but also Korean fans.