By day, he is a grunting, goal-scoring powerhouse. By night, by beach, and on any other occasion that precludes wearing a football shirt, he is a camp, pearl-wearing preener who makes Noel Fielding look butch. Straight men hate him (that wink!), gay men love him (that body!) and women view him as the ultimate trophy shag. Lord knows what his beloved mother Dolores made of her son's recent dalliance with Paris Hilton but we doubt she was pleased. Although as two of the campest people on the planet, we think they are a perfect match.
Some might say that a man who wears diamond necklaces, skin-tight trunks, inch-thick foundation and pink plastic flowers behind his ear cannot possibly be heterosexual. But Ronaldo maintains that it is only because he is so sure of his sexual orientation that he can push the sartorial envelope into territories where Perez Hilton might fear to tread. No matter that his idol is Ricky Martin, or that he shares a home with his male best friend: according to Ronaldo, he is as un-gay as George Best, only with better jewellery.
Inevitably, comparisons have been made with David Beckham. Lord knows what they must put in the Manchester water but Beckham also reached a zenith of campness during his tenure at Man U, displaying a fondness for sarongs that must have worried his wife, Victoria. But Ronaldo's brand of camp is different. While Beckham's firmly takes its lead from the catwalk (Jean Paul Gaultier is one of many designers to have pushed the male skirt), Ronaldo's is cut from a different, more Latin, cloth. In its sheer, don't-give-a-s**t exuberance, it is pure South America: so much so that it is tempting to think that Ronaldo didn't grow up in Portugal at all, but in a penthouse overlooking Ipanema beach.
In Brazil, all the men look like Ronaldo. In Manchester, they look like Shaun Ryder.
Transported to the more cosmopolitan Madrid, it is unlikely Ronaldo's garb will look so gay. Deal of the century it may be but still, we won't be happy until he is snapped up by a Brazilian team.
They might not be able to stretch to the £80 million transfer fee but if they threw in a pair of tight white shorts and a lifetime's supply of plastic flowers, who knows: they might secure his services for less money than they think.
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