[imagesource: Twitter / @ManUtd]

Yesterday, Cristiano Ronaldo officially completed his return to Manchester United.

CR7, as he is known to fans around the world, left Old Trafford for Real Madrid in 2009.

Even though he started his career at Sporting in Portugal, it’s being heralded as a return home to a club and a fanbase that has always adored him.

Of course, they’re overlooking the fact that Ronaldo would have signed for their greatest rivals, Manchester City, had the team in claret blue matched Juventus’ transfer fee demands.

They didn’t, Manchester United sprung into action, and here we are.

There’s another fact that’s being overlooked regarding Ronaldo’s return to England, too, and it’s an even more uncomfortable one for Manchester United fans, and football fans in general, to address.

We touched on the Ronaldo rape allegations in 2018, but given that his name is back in the news, almost always without any mention of the allegations, let’s revisit.

The basics, via The Athletic:

As first reported by German publication Der Spiegel in 2017, Ronaldo was alleged to have raped an American woman, Kathryn Mayorga, during a holiday in Las Vegas in 2009 [below is a picture from the night in question].

Ronaldo has strongly and consistently denied all accusations made against him, calling the story “fake news”.

Las Vegas Police re-investigated the crime in 2018 at the request of the victim but by the following summer had concluded that the claims could not “be proven beyond reasonable doubt”.

Ronaldo, it was ruled, would not face criminal charges.

Mayorga has not given up, and is currently pursuing a civil lawsuit against Ronaldo in the US.

Innocent until proven guilty, yes, and there is currently no criminal investigation into what happened that night.

But this is where things get tricky for Ronaldo.

Following the Las Vegas encounter in 2009, lawyers representing Mayorga contacted Ronaldo’s legal team that same year.

Der Spiegel, who broke the story in 2017 and have since followed up with a number of long articles on the matter, report that a questionnaire was submitted to Ronaldo.

There are several versions of this questionnaire, and while the questions remain the same, the answers reportedly differ in a number of key ways.

Der Spiegel wrote this in 2018, where Ronaldo is referred to as “X” while Kathryn Mayorga is referred to as “Ms. C.”.

Osório de Castro is Ronaldo’s lawyer:

In one version from December 2009, Ronaldo speaks of consensual sex and that there had been no indication that she wasn’t OK with it during sex nor did it seem that she wasn’t doing well afterward.

But there is another, much earlier version. It is the document that could have serious consequences for Ronaldo. It was sent via email in September 2009. The sender was a lawyer from Osório de Castro’s firm. The recipients were Osório de Castro himself and an additional colleague.

In response to the question as to whether Ms. C. ever raised her voice, screamed or called out, X responded, according to the document: “She said no and stop several times.”

In the document, X says that she was lying on her side. “I entered her from behind. It was rude. We didn’t change position. 5/7 minutes. She said that she didn’t want to, but she made herself available.” And further: “But she kept saying ‘No.’ ‘Don’t do it.’ ‘I’m not like the others.’ I apologized afterwards.”

She kept saying ‘no’ and asked him to stop ‘several times’.

She ‘said that she didn’t want to’.

He apologised.

The story Mayorga tells and the story Ronaldo tell differ on numerous points, but on others, they agree:

Question: Did Ms. C. say anything afterwards about the sex being too brutal?

X: “She didn’t complain about it being brutal. She complained that I forced her. She didn’t say anything about wanting to go to the police.”

In the answers to the list of questions, Ronaldo confirms Mayorga’s version on the following points: She said no several times. And he apologized afterwards.

In response to Der Spiegel breaking the story, Ronaldo’s lawyers issued another denial in 2018, saying the document concerned was “completely fabricated”.

Ronaldo’s lawyer Peter Christiansen said: “Once again, for the avoidance of doubt, Cristiano Ronaldo’s position has always been, and continues to be, that what happened in 2009 in Las Vegas was completely consensual.”

Der Spiegel obtained the above document, and others pertaining to agreements between the parties, via the whistleblowing platform Football Leaks.

The emails exposed by Football Leaks have proven to be true in multiple other incidents, and have been used by reputable outlets across the world for investigative reports.

In 2010, legal teams representing both Mayorga and Ronaldo met in Las Vegas for mediation.

After negotiations, for which Mayorga was present but Ronaldo was not, Ronaldo’s legal team agreed to pay Mayorga an out-of-court settlement of $375 000.

That was conditional to her agreeing to never go public with her accusations.

Ronaldo’s legal team have always stressed that this was not an admission of guilt in any way, and was done “in order to put an end to the outrageous accusations made against him.”

Here’s Mayorga’s account of the 2010 mediation meeting:

“It was stressing me out” says Kathryn Mayorga about that day. Her face is vacant, the fingers of her right hand stroking her turquoise earrings. “I wanted him there at that meeting. I wanted him to deal with it, to have to face me. That’s what I wanted most of all.”

She says that the mediator went back and forth between the two rooms to tell each side about the arguments presented by the other and, ultimately, to come up with a settlement.

Mayorga’s father and brother were also present:

“I was just so angry,” says Kathryn’s father Larry. “I was so mad that I couldn’t go in there for her. (…) I just stepped back and said: ‘Bite your tongue, Larry, and just…. This is her life and this is her decision. She’s an adult.'”

Kathryn’s brother clearly remembers the day of the mediation. The whole experience “was absolutely disgusting. It was horrible,” he says. “Ronaldo’s room was full of lawyers. (…) You could hear them laughing and joking,” he says. “And then in the other room, (my sister) is crying.”

The amount settled on equated to a week’s worth of Ronaldo’s wages at Real Madrid.

As part of the settlement, Ronaldo’s legal team put in stipulations regarding how much Mayorga could reveal to her family, and even to her therapist.

The final out-of-court settlement included 11 clauses, one of which prohibited Mayorga from ever speaking about the incident publicly, and another which required she drop all accusations against Ronaldo.

Because Ronaldo wasn’t present at the mediation to face Mayorga in person, she insisted she be allowed to write him a letter:

DER SPIEGEL has obtained a copy of the letter which is almost six pages long. It is difficult to read…

“I screamed NO NO NO NO NO NOOOO over and over I begged you to stop.”

“You jumped on me from behind,” she writes, “with a white rosary on your neck!! What would God think of that!!! What would God think of you!!!”

“I hope you realize what you have done and learned from this terrible mistake!! Don’t take another woman’s life as you did mine!!”

“I don’t care about your money that was the last thing I wanted!! I wanted justice! There really is ‘no justice’ in this case.”

The settlement agreement, according to Der Spiegel, was signed by Ronaldo using the alias “Topher”.

A separate document, titled “Confidential Side Letter Agreement”, is signed by Ronaldo himself, and makes it clear that “Topher” is Ronaldo.

As things stand, Mayorga is continuing to pursue Ronaldo for damages, with the case moved to US Federal Court in 2019.

US District Judge Jennifer Dorsey, based in Las Vegas, will decide if Mayorga “lacked the mental capacity” to sign a confidentiality arrangement with Ronaldo’s representatives at that time but, as yet, a hearing date has not been set for that to be determined.

As much detail as you’ve read above, it hardly touches the surface of Der Spiegel’s reporting.

A football match is 90 minutes long, plus added time for all the rolling around on the floor feigning injury.

Reading this Der Spiegel article, ‘The Woman Who Accuses Ronaldo of Rape’, will take at most a third of that.

Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and that is the case with Ronaldo (who has also been accused of rape on other occasions).

But before you come out swinging, or accusing people who raise these allegations of having an anti-Manchester United agenda (just one of the defences I’ve seen used on social media), perhaps take the time to actually read Mayorga’s story, in full.

You have plenty of time to do that before Ronaldo makes his ‘second debut’ for Manchester United on September 11.

[sources:athletic&derspiegel]