The superstar has been accused of rape by Kathryn Mayorga, a former model from the US. She has said the star football player raped her in a hotel in Las Vegas in 2009.

"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," Ronaldo said in a statement.

Mayorga filed a civil lawsuit in Nevada last week seeking monetary damages from Ronaldo, according to lawyer Larissa Drohobyczer.

The civil lawsuit filed in state court in Las Vegas alleges Ronaldo raped Mayorga, who was then 24, in his penthouse suite at a Las Vegas hotel and hired a team of what the document called "fixers" to shape a monetary settlement, obstruct a police criminal investigation and trick Mayorga into taking $375,000 to keep quiet.

Drohobyczer said Tuesday that Mayorga, now 34, was "emotionally fragile" and agreed to an out-of-court financial settlement nine years ago because she never wanted her name made public.

In an Instagram video posted hours after the suit was filed, Ronaldo appeared to deny the allegations.