There’s ridiculous, and then there is this.

A self-proclaimed ‘witch’ is enjoying his 15 minutes of fame after making the bold claim that he had placed a ‘hex’ on Cristiano Ronaldo at the request of a jaded ex-lover. Pepe (that’s the witch, not the ex-lover) is positively gloating after watching Ronaldo injure his ankle during the international break and is predicting that CR will be forced to stop playing football in four months.

For all the abuse Cristiano Ronaldo has received since the 2006 World Cup (when the blind lead the blind when the English press declared open season on him and the rest of the world followed), and there were plenty of kicks, shoves, shoulder barges and what not in between, this has got to be the worst of them all.

He now has to contend with every news report about him and his injuries accompanied by a mention of a non-existent curse put on him by a witch with a craft marketing plan.

Pepe is a smart one. He’s picked the Paris Hilton storyline, and he’s prefaced it by saying that he was also asked to put a curse on Lionel Messi but that he ‘refused’.

Of course you can’t claim to attack the baby-faced Argentine when your primary audience is superstitious mothers and jaded housewives. On the other hand, that’s the exact same audience that hates CR’s womanising and all that represents, so let’s put all our needles into him.

There’s no curse, there’s no spell, there’s nothing going on with Cristiano Ronaldo other than him getting a knock on his ankle that will keep him out of football till next month. The man will be back and will be scoring for fun all over again before the year is over.

As for Pepe – he’ll make some money out of it, for sure, and maybe resurface in 5 years going after yet another world-famous celebrity. He’s not the first hack trying to make a fast buck off a big name, and he won’t be the last.

Next.