Reason' behind why Cristiano Ronaldo didn't attend Diogo Jota's funeral

Ammon

19 hours ago

Ammon News - A key 'personal reason' behind Cristiano Ronaldo's absence from Diogo Jota can explain why he was not at his funeral on Saturday.
Jota, 28, was laid to rest at Gondomar cemetery in Portugal on Saturday afternoon after he and his brother, Andre Silva, 25, were killed when their Lamborghini crashed in the early hours of Thursday morning in northern Spain.
The accident came just 11 days after Jota had married childhood sweetheart Rute Cardoso, also 28, who is the mother of his two sons Dinis, four, and Duarte, two as well as his baby daughter Mafalda, who is just eight months old.
On Saturday, mourners exclusively told MailOnline that they were shocked by Ronaldo's absence given his role as the captain of the Portuguese national team.
Ronaldo, 40, skippered his side to Nations League glory in a team that Jota was also part of as Portugal beat Spain 5-3 on penalties to win the tournament on June 8.
But his decision not to attend Jota's funeral can be explained by previous tragedies in Ronaldo's personal life.
According to Portuguese outlet Record, Ronaldo may have opted not to attend the event due to sensitivities surrounding the death of his father, Jose Diniz Aveiro, who died in September 2005 - when Ronaldo was just 20 years old.
Ronaldo was shocked to hear of Jota's passing but is said to have not made the journey as he did not wish for his presence to overshadow the importance of people paying their respects to Jota and his brother.
While the Al-Nassr forward has come in for criticism from some quarters over his absence - he was publicly defended by his sister Katia on social media.
Taking to Instagram, she wrote: 'When my father died, in addition to the pain of loss, we had to deal with a flood of cameras and curious onlookers at the cemetery and everywhere we went.
'And attention was not what it is today in terms of access...At no time were we (the children) able to leave the chapel; it was only possible at the time of the burial, such was the commotion.
'At the funeral, there were presidents, coaches of the national team at the time, such as Luís Filipe Scolari, etc. I don't remember seeing any of them. And they certainly greeted me. The pain blinded me.
'About pain/family and real support... You will never know what it means until you go through it. If someone sends me a message criticising anything my brother does, I will block it (completely ignore it), that is, they will only do it once.