According to the French World Cup winner, he ignored advice to sacrifice a cow to ward off the evil spell – only to see his Chelsea career bedevilled by problems.
46 year old Petit, who is now a pundit, won the 1998 Double with the Gunners and scored in France’s 3-0 World Cup final win over Brazil in the same year.
He swapped Arsenal for Barcelona in 2000 before joining the Blues a year later. However the midfielder suffered a spate of injuries, and was released in 2004.
He announced his retirement in January 2005 after failing fully to recover from knee surgery.
In an interview with French TV station SFR Sport, he said:
“I had a curse put on me. After the 2002 World Cup I was on a beach on the Cote d’Azur.
“There were African street vendors going around, and one came up and set out some of his stuff in front of me.
“He told me: ‘There are rumours going around that a marabout has put an evil spell on you. People are jealous of you, and a serious injury will end your career.’
"I asked him what I could do to prevent this happening. He said: 'You have to kill a cow.'
"At the time I thought he was just telling lies.
"But six months later I did suffer a serious injury. I did not kill a cow, and I went on to suffer a double ligament tear in my right leg."
