Revealed: How Cristiano Ronaldo was convinced to invest in UFL as new video game attempts to rival EAFC and eFootball

Despite once being on the cover of the EAFC games back when they had an iconic FIFA partnership, Ronaldo is now the face of UFL, which is being developed by Strikerz Inc. The 39-year-old was initially an ambassador of the new game before a group he is part of invested a reported $40 million into the project at the end of 2023.

The game will be free to play and the developers have labelled it 'fair to play', which means that players will be able to progress through it based on merit, rather than the controversial microtransactions that EA Sports users can purchase to build a squad in Ultimate Team.

That aspect of the game is part of what convinced Al-Nassr hero Ronaldo to get behind the project and invest in it, according to CEO Eugene Nashilov.

He told Sport Bible: "When Cristiano joined us as an investor he had already been an ambassador for some time. There are big gaming publishers in the consortium that guarantee we can deliver for him, with all of these combined as well as our great relationship it worked out well. The 'fair to play' aspect really stuck out to him with the game being free to play. We can ensure that this will always remain the case. He felt like there is a certain chance that these guys will deliver what they say so that really affected his decision-making."

An official launch date for UFL has not yet been announced but the developers aim to make it available by the end of the year and they will hope to compete with the more established game.