Pogba, potions and impotence: the secret world of witch doctors in France

African faith healer Cheick Issa sits next to Tree barks and potions prepared by himself in his apartment which serves as his office before consulting a client in Paris on July 26, 2023. (Photo by JOEL SAGET / AFP)

“There’s a lot of jealousy in football,” said Sheikh Issa, holding up a piece of bark and a bottle of a yellowish potion.

Which is why many professional players beat a path to the African faith healer in the Paris suburbs looking for ways to ward off the “evil eye” and other afflictions.

Since World Cup winner Paul Pogba was sensationally accused of having spells cast on his French teammate Kylian Mbappe, the surprisingly influential role folk healers or “marabouts” play in the game has begun to come to light.

“This is what I use to treat a player who keeps getting injured in big games,” said Sheikh Issa, whose name we have changed at his request.

He was really low and “I had to clean his star”, said the Ivory Coast-born “traditional practitioner”, who claims to be able to “see both the past and the future”.

With so much money at stake, and careers that can end on a single tackle, elite sports people “regularly turn to witch doctors and to the paranormal”, said Joel Thibault, an evangelical pastor who is a spiritual advisor to French striker Olivier Giroud and other top athletes.

All this had been discreetly going out of the public eye until Pogba — whose parents come from Guinea — fell victim to an alleged extortion attempt by some of his entourage last year.

His brother later claimed Pogba paid a witch doctor to hex Mbappe, but both the former Manchester United star and the healer told police they did nothing of the kind.

The marabout said the substantial payments Pogba made to him were for “good works in Africa”.

Wit