Thousands of Cristiano Ronaldo supporters mobbed an unsuspecting bride at her wedding outside Funchal Cathedral on Saturday.
Rumours suggesting that Ronaldo was getting married to Georgina Rodriguez in Madeira this weekend were wide of the mark as Funchal city centre was swarming with people hoping to catch a glimpse of what would have been one of the biggest celebrity weddings of the year.
However, it turned out that the wedding at Funchal Cathedral was booked for Fabio Ramos and Fatima Nicole Cunha Teixeira, a couple who live in France but returned to their homeland to get married and have absolutely no connection with Portugal’s and Real Madrid’s all-time leading goalscorer.
Father Marcos Goncalves, the parish priest of the cathedral who married the couple, said: ‘I can tell you that they are nothing to do with Cristiano Ronaldo. This is the only wedding taking place here today.’
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Ronaldo’s older sister, Elma Aveiro, responded to footage of the large crowd outside the cathedral with a message on social media which read: ‘But why do these people think Ronaldo would get married, when he himself never announced it, anyway? Don’t they realise that the media doesn’t know anything, they just want to know?! And then they invent things. Surreal.’
Thousands had also gathered outside the Savoy Palace, a luxury five-star hotel in Funchal, after rumours suggested that it would be the venue for Ronaldo’s wedding party.
Ronaldo, meanwhile, appeared to see the funny side as he responded to Jornal da Madeira’s post of the crowds outside the cathedral with several laughing face emojis.
One member of the wedding party said: ‘Fabio is not Cristiano Ronaldo. This is all crazy. We did not expect anything like this.
‘I don’t think he is going to forget his wedding.’
The grey Rolls-Royce transporting Nicole to her wedding struggled to get to the cathedral due to the unusually large crowd outside.
As it arrived, hundreds of fans swarmed the car as they tried to get a glimpse of the bride they believed was Georgina.
But one member of the wedding party attempted to get the crowd to back away by shouting: ‘This is not Georgina!’
Ronaldo previously said in an interview with Piers Morgan that he and Georgina planned to marry after World Cup.
The 41-year-old made his sixth appearance at a World Cup this summer as Portugal were knocked out by eventual winners Spain in the last 16.
‘I hope to arrive at my wedding with the champion’s trophy,’ Ronaldo said.
‘I’m going to marry her because I believe it’s the right time.
‘Not just because she’s the mother of my children but because she’s the person I love most.’
The pair met in 2016 when Georgina was working at a Gucci shop in Madrid.
But in an interview with TV 7 Dias last month, Ronaldo’s sister, Katia Aveiro, claimed that a wedding date had not been scheduled for 2026.
‘There’s no set date,’ Katia said.
‘This year I won’t be wearing a wedding dress, neither for myself nor for him.’
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