FPF Disciplinary Council imposes 30-day suspension on Ronaldo

On 30 September, Cristiano Ronaldo left Portugal’s camp at Copenhagen’s Parken Stadium in a vehicle requested from the national-team services director. He went before the scheduled 18:00 training session, then missed the team dinner at the Marriott Copenhagen Hotel that evening. The FPF disciplinary ruling later said he had not notified or justified his departure to the federation or team officials first. What happened next turned an abrupt exit into a formal case over his duties to Portugal.

The FPF Disciplinary Council’s final ruling treats Ronaldo’s departure as a deliberate, unjustified breach of his national-team duties and imposes a 30-day suspension. But the sanction’s practical reach is shorter: reports say 19 days already served count towards it, leaving 11 days and an end date of 30 October. Reports differ on when the count began: Record and O Jogo say 1 October, while CNN Portugal says 30 September. That would put him back in contention before Portugal’s November matches against Denmark and Wales. Eligibility is not a call-up, though. The ruling settles the disciplinary case; whether Ronaldo returns to the squad remains for Portugal coach Jorge Jesus to decide.

Ronaldo accepted responsibility for leaving camp.

The FPF Disciplinary Council found that Ronaldo committed an unjustified breach of Article 160, deliberately and as a single offence. The rule applies when a regularly summoned player leaves or misses national-team training, a match or a related activity without valid justification. It allows a suspension of one to six months and a fine for professional players.

The Council did not accept Ronaldo’s explanations to federation president Pedro Proença or his later public account as a valid reason for leaving, according to the ruling. It said he had acted knowingly, aware that his conduct was prohibited and punishable. The decision also records the scale of the absence: 31 team activities missed between 30 September and 4 October, including training, meals, briefings, travel, a press conference and both matches in that period.

The fine was 2.5 units of account, or €255, the Council said. That is below the regulation’s stated range for professional players: reports value the range of five to 10 units at about €500 to €1,000. The suspension and fine therefore reflect separate parts of the same disciplinary rule.

The team are scheduled to host Denmark on 14 November, then play Wales on 17 November.

The suspension’s reach outside Portugal is not settled. The Disciplinary Council has referred a separate question to the FPF Legal Directorate: whether to communicate the ruling to UEFA and FIFA, for possible recognition or enforcement in competitions organised by those bodies. Record reports that the referral is for legal assessment, not a decision to send the sanction.

For now, the boundary of the case remains the next question: whether the FPF takes the matter beyond its own disciplinary process.

The ruling rejected Ronaldo’s justification, but the disagreement over what prompted his departure remains. Ronaldo said Jorge Jesus had agreed he could play 30 minutes against Norway, then failed to bring him on after he warmed up; Jesus denied making any agreement about playing time, according to Marca. Ronaldo also asked the Council to consider his service to football, sporting merit and cooperation with the investigation. The Council cited his importance to Portugal and his acceptance of responsibility when weighing the case’s special-prevention aspect, A Bola reports.

Sérgio Conceição, a Portuguese coach, urged restraint rather than choosing between the two men. Speaking to Gazzetta dello Sport’s La Tripletta podcast, he described the dispute as sensitive at home and stressed both Ronaldo’s standing and Jesus’s role.

Cristiano is a legend, one of the five best players of all time. Jesus, for his part, is the national-team coach, a respected coach with a lot of experience. Honestly, it does not seem fair to take sides for one or the other.

Portugal has seen a far longer national-team suspension for a player leaving camp. In 2011, Ricardo Carvalho was banned from national-team activities for a year after leaving without authorisation, according to A Bola and SIC Notícias. He was not called up again while Paulo Bento was coach, then returned after Fernando Santos took over in September 2014. The comparison shows how a federation’s punishment and a coach’s later selection decision can shape a player’s absence on different timelines.

The circumstances around Carvalho’s return also mark a limit to what the precedent can tell us. The earlier case included a decision not to notify UEFA, Sampaio e Nora later recalled, but that does not establish how the FPF will handle Ronaldo’s ruling. The question of wider communication remains with the federation’s legal process.

Portugal’s immediate sporting position is different, too. Before the November fixtures, the team had already secured first place in its group and qualification for the Nations League quarter-finals. Denmark and Wales therefore come after that qualification was settled, with Ronaldo’s return to the squad still dependent on Jesus’s choice.

At Parken, Ronaldo’s departure began with a vehicle leaving before training. The case now moves towards decisions that were not part of that scene: the FPF’s next step after its legal assessment, and the choices Jorge Jesus makes as Portugal prepare for November.

• The FPF Legal Directorate’s assessment of whether to communicate the suspension to UEFA and FIFA.
• Portugal’s scheduled match against Denmark on 14 November.
• Portugal’s scheduled match against Wales on 17 November.