Soon to be reopened, this museum has stood to gain in both size and location.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s trophies are now housed in a building in Avenida Sá Carneiro, even closer to one of the island’s entryways, the Port of Funchal.
The change in facilities happened two and half years after the inauguration of the CR7 Museum, an institution that portrays the career of the captain of the Portuguese national football team. And the museum was not the only thing to be relocated. The iconic statue representing the footballer now stands in front of the museum.
Before its official reopening for the general public, the space was visited by Miguel Alburquerque, president of the Regional Government, and Eduardo Jesus, Regional Secretary for the Economy, Tourism and Culture, in the company of Hugo Aveiro, the player’s brother.
During the visit, Miguel Albuquerque said he believes this new museum should ‘contribute to a greater affirmation of Madeira through that which is, assumedly, one of its main ambassadors in the world’. The President of the Regional Government added that ‘the collaboration between Cristiano Ronaldo and the Region has come to add value to the destination’s image in the rest of the world giving it a visibility which is bound to be strengthened in the future thanks to a Madeiran who has never forgotten his origins and who now more than ever makes it a point to remember them to all those who, directly or indirectly, follow him in the social media’.
Eduardo Jesus shares this view. For him this partnership ‘has had reached farther than any before it in terms of promoting the Region whit figures that vouch for it showing how millions of people all over the world are reached. Such means of communication serve to strengthen the notoriety of the destination simultaneously in several countries and arousing a curiosity that was unthinkable a year back’.
The new museum located in Avenida Sá Carneiro is incorporated in the building where the first partnership between Cristiano Ronaldo and Dionísio Pestana will build its first hotel, the Pestana CR7 Madeira.
Back in December 2015, the two Madeirans decided to join their brands in a project comprising the creation of four hotel units. After the one in Madeira, to open in the summer of 2016, follow the Pestana CR7 hotels in the downtown of Lisbon, the one on the Gran Vía, in Madrid, and the one near Times Square, in New York, to open in 2017.
