Cristiano Ronaldo and padel are no longer just about a few games between training sessions. In Vogue, the Portuguese star says 2026 could be his final year in football and spontaneously names padel among the activities he wants to watch and play more often. At 41, he already owns the Lisboa Racket Centre, follows the professional circuit and plays regularly.
In Vogue, Ronaldo puts padel into his post-football plans
The interview was published by Vogue on August 16, 2026. Gaby Wood spoke with Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez a few days before their wedding in Cascais. The conversation begins with their family life and marriage before moving to what comes next in the Portuguese player’s career.
Ronaldo says 2026 could be his final year in football and that he wants to finish with a legacy worthy of his career. He also explains that he has already thought about how to fill the space football will leave after roughly twenty-five years of professional life devoted to the sport.
Watch and play padel, which I really like.
The line appears in a list that also includes family, travel and enjoying more of what he has built. Ronaldo is not presenting padel as a new profession. He is naming it as a concrete part of his future daily life.
The distinction matters. His Al-Nassr contract runs until 2027 after an extension announced in June 2025, and the interview gives no firm retirement date. The Portuguese player says only that he sees this season as potentially his last. His post-football life is taking shape without a definitive timetable.
Cristiano Ronaldo has been playing padel for several years
Padel has not suddenly appeared in Cristiano Ronaldo’s public comments. In February 2025, the International Padel Federation reported on his presence at the Riyadh Season Premier Padel P1 and recalled a line attributed to the Portuguese star: “I play every day”.
The FIP said he plays in Saudi Arabia when his Al-Nassr schedule allows, as well as in Portugal. It also mentioned a session with Arturo Coello, then the FIP world No. 1. In September 2024, Ronaldo himself shared an Instagram video linked to that meeting.
His interest is also visible from the stands. Ronaldo attended several days of Premier Padel in Riyadh in 2025 and again in 2026. In February 2026, the FIP once more highlighted his presence at the Padel Rush Arena for the season opener, a year after his first high-profile appearances supporting Portuguese brothers Nuno and Miguel Deus.
Ronaldo has already invested in padel through the Lisboa Racket Centre
Playing is only one part of the story. In November 2024, Ronaldo’s holding company confirmed to Lusa, in information carried by Correio da Manhã, that it had acquired the entire Lisboa Racket Centre in Alvalade.
At the time, the complex had eight padel courts, seven tennis courts and five squash courts. The holding company also reported more than one thousand students across the three sports. The purchase gave Ronaldo an operating sports asset rather than a simple branding exercise.
In September 2025, the club hosted its first international circuit tournament, the FIP Silver Lisboa Racket Centre. The FIP described the event as taking place at the sports centre owned by Cristiano Ronaldo. The finals were streamed on his YouTube channel, as the Riyadh P1 finals had been a few months earlier. His role therefore spans playing, infrastructure and distribution.
The same venue then hosted a FIP Promises event in October 2025. Moving from a leisure activity to owning a club capable of staging international competition gives a clearer measure of his involvement in the sport.
The Oeiras Cidade do Padel did not materialise, while Cascais has been mentioned
Another project long symbolised the ambitions around Ronaldo in Portugal: the Cidade do Padel. The Oeiras municipality presented plans in 2024 for a complex near Jamor with 17 courts and a centre court, developed with the Portuguese Padel Federation.
The original Oeiras project did not go ahead. In May 2026, Portuguese federation president Ricardo Oliveira told Record that the plans had changed and said he believed a new location in Cascais could move forward, with Cristiano Ronaldo and Filipe de Botton cited among the partners.
At this stage, it would be too strong to describe that relaunch as completed or guaranteed. It does show that Ronaldo’s interest in padel infrastructure in Portugal has gone beyond the acquisition of the Lisboa Racket Centre.
Why the Vogue statement matters
What is new in the interview is less Ronaldo’s fondness for padel than the moment in which he places it. In an interview about his new family life, he explicitly includes padel in the way he expects to organise his time after football.
He announces no competitive padel career, no official role in the sport and no new commercial project. The available facts do not support going that far. They do show a clear continuity: Ronaldo plays, watches the tour, owns a racket-sports centre and has already used his own audience to distribute professional padel.
If 2026 does become his final football season, padel will not enter his life at retirement. It is already there. The real change may simply be how much time he chooses to devote to it once he puts away his football boots.
