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Stunning £90 million Lionel Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo All-Stars game at Wembley Stadium was proposed

Home> Football> Football News

Updated 16:54 8 Jun 2025 GMT+1Published 16:46 8 Jun 2025 GMT+1

Stunning £90 million Lionel Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo All-Stars game at Wembley Stadium was proposed

Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi came ‘very close’ to playing each other in a super-match in London.

Nasir Jabbar

Nasir Jabbar

Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo came 'very close' to playing each other in an All-Stars super-match at Wembley Stadium.

Messi and Ronaldo dominated world football at the peak of their powers.

They have won a combined 13 Ballon d'Or titles between them and shared a legendary rival in Spain's La Liga.

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And a game between Ronaldo and Messi - where they would have hand-picked the global starting XIs - was proposed in 2014, according to The Sun.

Robert Bonnier, a former dotcom multi-millionaire, made an approach to Messi and Ronaldo's camps about his ambitious project that would have been staged in London, England, at Wembley Stadium.

At the time of the proposal, Messi and Ronaldo were both in Spain, with Barcelona and Real Madrid respectively.

Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo came 'very close' to playing each other in an ambitious project. Image: Getty
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo came 'very close' to playing each other in an ambitious project. Image: Getty

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Bonnier was desperate to establish a game every other year in Europe that would have pitted Team Messi against Team Ronaldo and would have included the world's best players.

Both parties seemed to be interested after a proposed budget of around £90 million was put forward, which included match fees and bonuses.

Wembley Stadium was chosen as the venue for the game, with Messi and Ronaldo to be kitted out in their own sponsors - Adidas for the Argentine and Nike for the Portuguese.

If it had gone ahead as initially planned for 2017, then the idea was to run it outside of the World Cups and European Championships and make it look like a music festival rather than a friendly match.

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Wembley Stadium was chosen to host the All-Stars game. Image: Getty
Wembley Stadium was chosen to host the All-Stars game. Image: Getty

The businessman wanted bands, laser shows and - wait for it - a boxing fight to finish if off.

Per the report, the All-Stars game failed to transpire due to the sheer number of invested parties and the football politics involved.

For example, Real president Florentino Perez wanted a whopping £21 million for any of his players to be involved.

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TV producer David Piper, who was hired by Bonnier to make it happen, said at the time: "An All-Star game is the last great frontier for football. We were very close."

Featured Image Credit: Nike/Adidas/Getty

Topics: Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Football

Nasir Jabbar
Nasir Jabbar

Nasir Jabbar is a journalist at SPORTbible. He graduated from Bath Spa University with a BA in Media Communications. He's a combat sport aficionado and has contributed to MMA websites AddictedMMA and CagePotato. Nasir has covered some of the biggest fights, while interviewing the likes of Conor McGregor, Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury and Darren Till. He's also an avid Bristol City fan.

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@NasJabbar

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