Portugal suspended Ronaldo on Friday, and their president already wants him back in November
The federation’s disciplinary council has opened an urgent case over Cristiano Ronaldo’s walkout, and Pedro Proença should have let it run before naming a return date.
Oct 11, 2026
The Portuguese Football Federation has two positions on Cristiano Ronaldo right now, and they do not sit comfortably together. On Friday, 9 October, its disciplinary council opened proceedings over his walkout from the national team camp and gave him a provisional suspension, marking the case as urgent. By Saturday, federation president Pedro Proença was telling everyone he expects Ronaldo back for the November international break.
Proença said the federation, the coach and the players are all agreed that they want Ronaldo back. I understand why he said it. I just think it was the wrong thing to say this week.
How it got here
Ronaldo was an unused substitute when Portugal won 2-1 in Norway on 27 September. He warmed up and was never brought on, and he left the camp 24 hours before the Denmark game that followed. In a statement of nearly 2,000 words, he accused Jorge Jesus of a “breach of trust”, saying the coach had promised him 30 minutes in Oslo and then gone back on it. He also apologised to his teammates and asked the federation to punish him without leniency. Jesus denies that any such agreement was made.
The disciplinary file went to the federation’s investigation committee on Saturday, and the details stay confidential until that work is done. The federation’s rules say a player who leaves a national team activity without justification is suspended for between one and six months, plus a fine.
The president should have waited
When the head of the federation announces the date he expects a suspended player back, before the investigators have started, he puts a number on the outcome. Any ban shorter than about five weeks now looks like the committee doing what the president wanted. Anything longer looks like a snub to him. Neither is good for a process Ronaldo himself asked to be strict.
There is also a squad that has been fine without him. Portugal beat Denmark 4-2 in Copenhagen and Norway 2-1 in Porto while he was gone, with Gonçalo Ramos scoring in both, and they are already through to the Nations League quarter-finals with 12 points from four games. Portugal host Denmark on 14 November and then play Wales, and they go into both games already qualified. There was no need to rush the message.
Ronaldo is still scoring
None of this is about whether Ronaldo can still play. On the same day the proceedings opened, he scored in Al Nassr’s 3-0 win over Al Diriyah in the Saudi Pro League, his first game since the walkout. He is 41 and has 146 goals in 234 appearances for Portugal, and he says he wants to keep adding to them.
He will probably be back. I would just rather it happened because a committee looked at the case and set a fair punishment, than because the president had already said November. Ronaldo’s whole complaint is that someone in the Portugal set-up did not keep their word. The federation should be careful not to give him another example.