Rio de Janeiro - Brazilian striker Ronaldo is expecting a baby with ex-girlfriend Maria Beatriz "Bia" Antony, who recently left the Milan forward following a scandal involving transvestites.

"I am very happy, everyone celebrated. I heard early Saturday. 'Bia' is arriving in Rio this week," Ronaldo's mother Sonia Nazario de Lima was quoted as saying in the Monday edition of the Brazilian daily O Dia.

Brazilian media assumed that the pregnancy could pave the way for a reconciliation between Ronaldo, 31, and Antony, a 23-year-old engineer who previously dated current Formula 1 driver Nelsinho Piquet.

Antony - who had been living with the striker in Milan since late last year and travelled with him to Rio de Janeiro last month - decided to leave Ronaldo a couple of weeks ago, in the wake of a scandal after the footballer sought sex at an hourly hotel in Rio with three prostitutes who were in fact transvestites.

In the only interview he gave on the subject, Ronaldo said he was "repentant" and even "ashamed" of what he defined as a "stupid action," but he denied having had sex with the transvestites or having used drugs, as one of the prostitutes initially claimed.

He said he gave up on sex when he realized his partners were transvestites, but noted that they demanded "an absurd amount of money" in exchange for not letting the media know of the affair.

Ronaldo already has one son, Ronald, from his first marriage to fellow-football player Milene Domingues. During his swift relationship with Brazilian model Daniella Cicarelli the woman got pregnant but suffered a miscarriage. (dpa)