Cristiano Ronaldo is not among the players selected by Fernando Santos for Portugal's upcoming international fixtures against Poland and Scotland.
Due to travel to Poland for Portugal's second UEFA Nations League tie on 11 October, Santos will subsequently lead his team to Glasgow for a friendly fixture against Scotland on 14 October.
This will be the second successive international break that Ronaldo will play no part in. Having last played for Portugal in their World Cup defeat to Uruguay, the Juventus player was subsequently absent for games against Croatia and Italy; the latter of these being Portugal's first Nations League tie.
Speaking at the announcement of his squad this afternoon, Santos suggested that this latest development did not necessarily signal the end of Ronaldo's involvement with international football.
💬Fernando Santos: “No futuro, nada impede que o Cristiano dê o seu contributo à Seleção" 🇵🇹 #TudoPorPortugal
— Portugal (@selecaoportugal) October 4, 2018
News of Ronaldo's omission from the Portuguese set-up comes in a week where the former Real Madrid man has stressed his determination to fight an allegation of rape that has been made against him.
Ronaldo has been accused of raping American woman Kathryn Mayorga during a 2009 holiday in Las Vegas, though Ronaldo vehemently denies the charge, and publicly announced via his Twitter account yesterday that he would be fighting it.
"I firmly deny the accusations being issued against me. Rape is an abominable crime that goes against everything that I am and believe in.
"Keen as I may be to clear my name, I refuse to feed the media spectacle created by people seeking to promote themselves at my expense.
"My clear conscious will thereby allow me to await with tranquillity the results of any and all investigations."
Having initially paid an out of court settlement of $375,000 to Mayorga in 2010, a civil lawsuit has since been on filed on behalf of Mayorga's new team of lawyers to invalidate the validity of this settlement.
At this stage, it is unclear whether Ronaldo's latest ommision from the international squad is in any way related to these allegations.
