Cristiano Ronaldo has been drawn into a British broadcasting feud by proxy, after Piers Morgan revealed a personal message he says the forward sent him about pundit Simon Jordan.
Speaking on Football Uncensored, the programme he hosts alongside Jason Cundy, Morgan explained that he had forwarded Ronaldo the clip of his on-air argument with Jordan and read out the reply he received. According to Morgan, Ronaldo’s response was: “Tell that blond guy to stop with the Botox. He looks like an apple!” Morgan delivered the line between laughs, before extending the joke himself: “Breaking news live from Cristiano Ronaldo. You are an apple. A blond apple with a suspiciously smooth face.”
Jordan, a talkSPORT commentator and former Crystal Palace chairman, was asked about it hours later and declined to take offence. “Botox? I wish I could use Botox. I find it quite flattering,” he said.
The exchange followed a heated debate between Morgan and Jordan in which Morgan defended Ronaldo over his controversy with Jorge Jesus. Jordan pushed back firmly during the discussion, telling Morgan: “Everyone knows that Cristiano Ronaldo is a good footballer. But you need to get your head out of his ass and be objective for once.” By passing on the message, Ronaldo has effectively taken his friend Morgan’s side against Jordan, who had been making the case for Jorge Jesus. Morgan is widely regarded as Ronaldo’s confidant in the English press.
Jordan’s public profile stretches well beyond the studio. A businessman who made his initial fortune in the prepaid mobile phone sector with the company Pocket Phone Shop, he is also a columnist, journalist and co-host of the daily sports programme White and Jordan, and a well-known voice in British sports media. In 2000, at just 32 years old, he bought Crystal Palace FC — the club with which he remains most closely associated as a former chairman.