Out of Play
How Balon d’Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo saved his older brother from drink and drug addiction
HE’S the greatest footballer on the planet, and the accolades continue to pour in for the Balon d’Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo.
But for his troubled brother Hugo Aveiro, 10-years CR7’s senior, life has been more challenging.
Living in the shadow of the superstar sibling was daunting for the one-time promising footballer, who fell into a life of drink and drugs in the late 1990s.
It was an addiction gene that ran in the family, with their late father Jose Dinis Aveiro also a recovering alcoholic.
But thanks to Cristiano’s support, Hugo, 42, is now sober and managing the Balon d’Or winner’s CR7 museum in Madeira, Portugal.
They are closer than ever, go on holidays together, while Ronaldo is godfather to Hugo’s son.
Hugo was also part of Cristiano’s entourage, boarding a private plane to head to the 2017 Balon d’Or ceremony.
However, it all unfolded publicly at the Champions League Final in 2014, when Ronaldo stole the show in a 4-1 win over rivals Atletico Madrid at the Estadio da Luz.
An emotional hug, caught on camera, between the pair celebrating Real’s crowning glory reportedly culminated in a pact.
Cristiano told Hugo now he’s fulfilled his part of the bargain and won a Champions League for Los Blancos, it’s his brother’s turn to stop boozing.
It was a tough demand on a man who had spent most of his adult life struggling with substances.
But it was a wish Hugo has since maintained, blessed by Cristiano’s love and support.
And as anyone in recovery will tell you, you’re always an addict and every day is a fight.
Which makes Hugo’s journey, with the aid of his little bro, a remarkable one all the same.
Hugo was born the year their father Jose Dinis went to Angola with the Portuguese army.
He left school before 17, and worked for a aluminium company before later running a painting crew.
However, trouble was only around the corner for Hugo, who then started abusing substances, according to writer Guillem Balague in his Ronaldo biography.
At this time, Hugo was playing ‘street football’ and was said to be a decent player. A left-footed striker, he played in the informal street leagues of Santo Antonio.
Mixing it up against older men, childhood friend Joel Santos claimed that Hugo stood out.
“I didn’t know Hugo back then. But everybody who knew says he was a better footballer than Ronaldo,” he said.
C.S. Maritimo president Carlos Pereira, who has known Ronaldo for most of his life, was more sceptical about Hugo’s abilities.
“Nowadays, people say that Hugo was a good player, but that has nothing to do with the kind of football that Ronaldo plays,” he said.
“Hugo was a street player. He played. He drank. He slept. When Ronaldo started to play, he played in a club with structure, with coaches and directors.
“It is a different kind of football. Hugo may have been skillful, but it was as a street footballer, playing against his friends in an amateur way. Nothing like Ronaldo.”
The influence of Cristiano’s father, better known as Dinis, left a long-lasting impression on both boys growing up.
While Cristiano set out to become a pro, vowing never to drink after seeing how it destroyed his own family, Hugo succumbed to the same demons as his dad.
Dinis died from liver failure when Ronaldo was just 20-years-old and failed to see his son’s meteoric rise.
It left Ronaldo scarred, according to his mum Dolores. “Cristiano has seen what drink and drugs can do to people close to him.
“And it’s part of the reason why he’s become who he is today.”
Dolores continued: “Dinis drank himself into an early grave which left Cristiano devastated.
“Time and again, Cristiano offered to pay to get him treatment but Dinis kept on drinking.
“He was still so young, just 52, when he died. Cristiano was very close to his dad.
“He would have loved him to still be around to see the player he is today. It’s very sad.”
As a young boy, Cristiano and his father were inseparable. From the ages of six and nine, Dinis was the kit man at his boys’ team Andorinha in Funchal.
Despite his death in 2005, Ronaldo revealed it spurred him on to become the best.
“Obviously the death of my father influenced everything.
“I knew the pain would pass and the most important thing was for me to continue with my work.”
When Cristiano moved to Lisbon at 11-years-old, earning £170 a month as an apprentice, Hugo’s life also began to spiral out of control.
Mom Dolores realised something had to be done and she packed him off to rehab.
“I paid to send Hugo away to a specialist clinic for treatment. I was working as a cleaner, earning only £400 a month and I had to take out a loan,” she said.
But Hugo soon returned to his old ways, and this time it was his brother who stepped in to save the day by paying for more treatment.
“Cristiano was 16 then. He was earning more and paid for his brother’s treatment,” Dolores said.
“There’s no doubt his money helped to save Hugo.
“Things might have turned out a lot differently if Cristiano hadn’t been a footballer.”
In a self-titled 2015 documentary about the Portuguese forward, Hugo briefly addressed his own issues.
He revealed that working with his father in construction was the catalyst for his woes.
Hugo also admitted he was influenced by drug pushers growing up in a neighbourhood rife with narcotics.
“Growing up, Ronaldo’s two sisters were much closer to him than his brother because his brother was becoming like his father,” close pal Pereira divulged.
“The guys who surrounded Hugo were a different kind of people, the junkies of the neighbourhood. They were all taking drink and drugs.”
And that’s a sentiment former neighbour Joao Ornelas shared, and how the brothers went down different roads.
“Ronaldo got lucky; Hugo had bad luck,” he said.
“Hugo tried drugs, and he got hooked. Once or twice, he stole things from home to sell and buy drugs, but nowadays he’s OK. He’s a nice guy. He’s clean.
“The difference is that Hugo always lived here in the neighbourhood. Ronaldo went to Lisbon when he was only 12.
“He had more comfort than he had here on this street. He had other people looking after him.
“He had rules that he had to follow. Everything changed in that moment.”
Maritimo chairman Pereira added: “Ronaldo got a different chance in life than Hugo.
“Hugo always lived there. He stayed in that environment. Since Ronaldo was really young, people noticed he had a special talent. Along the way, people took care of him.
“He was nurtured. It made him feel special. It made him believe he could take a different path in life than his brother and his father.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in Ukraine on Thursday with explosions heard soon after across the country and its foreign minister warning a “full-scale invasion” was underway.
Weeks of intense diplomacy and the imposition of Western sanctions on Russia failed to deter Putin, who had massed between 150,000 and 200,000 troops along the borders of Ukraine.
“I have made the decision of a military operation,” Putin said in a surprise television announcement that triggered immediate condemnation from US President Joe Biden and sent global financial markets into turmoil.
Shortly after the announcement, explosions were heard in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and several other cities, according to AFP correspondents.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his address to the nation at the Kremlin in Moscow on February 21, 2022. Alexey NIKOLSKY / Sputnik / AFP
Putin called on Ukrainian soldiers to lay down their arms and justified the operation by claiming the government was overseeing a “genocide” in the east of the country.
The Kremlin had earlier said rebel leaders in eastern Ukraine had asked Moscow for military help against Kyiv.
The extent of Thursday’s attacks was not immediately clear, but Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the worst-case scenario was playing out.
“Putin has just launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Peaceful Ukrainian cities are under strikes,” Kuleba tweeted.
“This is a war of aggression. Ukraine will defend itself and will win. The world can and must stop Putin. The time to act is now.”
Biden immediately warned of “consequences” for Russia and that there would be a “catastrophic loss of life and human suffering”.
NATO’s chief condemned Russia’s “reckless and unprovoked attack” on Ukraine.
Putin’s move came after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky made an emotional appeal late on Wednesday night to Russians not to support a “major war in Europe”.
Speaking Russian, Zelensky said that the people of Russia were being lied to about Ukraine.
Zelensky said he had tried to call Putin but there was “no answer, only silence”, adding that Moscow now had around 200,000 soldiers near Ukraine’s borders.
Earlier on Wednesday the separatist leaders of Donetsk and Lugansk sent separate letters to Putin, asking him to “help them repel Ukraine’s aggression”, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
The two letters were published by Russian state media and were both dated February 22.
Their appeals came after Putin recognised their independence and signed friendship treaties with them that include defence deals.
– ‘Moment of peril’ –
Putin had for weeks defied a barrage of international criticism over the crisis, with some Western leaders saying he was no longer rational.
His announcement of the military operation came ahead of a last-ditch summit involving European Union leaders in Brussels planned for Thursday.
The 27-nation bloc had also imposed sanctions on Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu and high-ranking figures including the commanders of Russia’s army, navy and air force, another part of the wave of Western punishment after Putin sought to rewrite Ukraine’s borders.
The United Nations Security Council met late Wednesday for its second emergency session in three days over the crisis, with a personal plea there by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to Putin going unheeded.
“President Putin, stop your troops from attacking Ukraine, give peace a chance, too many people have already died,” Guterres said.
The US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, warned that an all-out Russian invasion could displace five million people, triggering a new European refugee crisis.
Before Putin’s announcement, Ukraine had urged its approximately three million citizens living in Russia to leave.
“We are united in believing that the future of European security is being decided right now, here in our home, in Ukraine,” President Zelensky said during a joint media appearance with the visiting leaders of Poland and Lithuania.
Western capitals said Russia had amassed 150,000 troops in combat formations on Ukraine’s borders with Russia, Belarus and Russian-occupied Crimea and on warships in the Black Sea.
Ukraine has around 200,000 military personnel, and could call up to 250,000 reservists.
Moscow’s total forces are much larger — around a million active-duty personnel — and have been modernised and re-armed in recent years.
– High cost of war –
But Ukraine has received advanced anti-tank weapons and some drones from NATO members. More have been promised as the allies try to deter a Russian attack or at least make it costly.
Shelling had intensified in recent days between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists — a Ukrainian soldier was killed on Wednesday, the sixth in four days — and civilians living near the front were fearful.
Dmitry Maksimenko, a 27-year-old coal miner from government-held Krasnogorivka, told AFP that he was shocked when his wife came to tell him that Putin had recognised the two Russian-backed separatist enclaves.
“She said: ‘Have you heard the news?’. How could I have known? There’s no electricity, never mind internet. I don’t know what is going to happen next, but to be honest, I’m afraid,” he said.
In a Russian village around 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the border, AFP reporters saw military equipment including rocket launchers, howitzers and fuel tanks mounted on trains stretching for hundreds of metres.
Russia has long demanded that Ukraine be forbidden from ever joining the NATO alliance and that US troops pull out from Eastern Europe.
Speaking to journalists, Putin on Tuesday set out a number of stringent conditions if the West wanted to de-escalate the crisis, saying Ukraine should drop its NATO ambition and become neutral.
Washington Wednesday announced sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which Germany had earlier effectively suspended by halting certification.
Australia, Britain, Japan and the European Union have all also announced sanctions.
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