Cisse used ‘voodoo-style ritual’ to end goalscoring curse

Papiss Cisse: Celebrates a goal with Newcastle boss Steve McClaren

Papiss Cisse: Wants to win back his place

Newcastle striker Papiss Cisse took part in a voodoo-style ritual to end a goal drought after fearing he had been cursed by a rival.

Cisse became worried when his run of sensational goals after joining the club came to a sudden end.

Convinced that another player had cursed him, the Daily Mirror claims he begged team-mate Cheick Tiote to help lift the blight.

And following the ceremony Cisse, 30 – who comes from Senegal in West Africa – returned to his winning ways.

A Newcastle insider said: “It’s one of those things you really couldn’t believe at first.

“Papiss is very superstitious and became convinced of the curse.”

The striker has scored 35 league goals for Newcastle since joining the club in a £9.3million deal from Freiburg in January 2012, but has scored just once his six games for the club so far this season.

Tiote, from Ivory Coast – where neighbouring Ghana is the ancestral home of voodoo – is said to have visited a “high priest” in the city for help.

The insider added: “Cheick is Papiss’s good friend so he agreed to it, even though it involved various bits of hocus pocus.”

Agent Madou Diene said of his £45,000-a-week striker’s return to form: “Maybe it’s psychological.”

But he added: “People talk about these things sometimes. They are friends.”

And he joked: “If Cheick would have done that, he’d have done it for himself to score goals also.”

The Newcastle Your Say forum is back – head there now.