Category Archives: *Chawupi Kalinga

Ramzan Kadyrov shows the Brazilians a clean pair of heels

By Chawupi Kalinga a.k.a @theluxuryplayer

for more from Chawupi check out his blog: http://luxuryplayer.wordpress.com/

Embattled Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi has made no secret of his support for the beautiful game. He has been particularly generous in Italy, where his Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company (Lafico) is the proud owner of a 7.5% stake in Juventus, and 7.4% of the the bank UniCredit, who are in effect Roma’s taskmasters. Alas the elder Gaddafi may well at this very moment be seeking solace in the pages of The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton’s 17th century treatise on the diagnosis and treatment of depression, on learning that not only has his stake in Juventus been frozen as owner Andrea Agnelli tries to backpedal furiously over a lengthy history of complicity between his club and the Libyan leader (including a period during which Gaddafi’s son Al-Saadi al-Gaddafi served on its board), but also that his position as the most famous despot to serve as a patron to football has seemingly been usurped by Ramzan Kadyrov, president of Chechnya and alleged serial abuser of human rights.

Kadyrov is a football lover, and, apparently, a generous man whose mission is to make sure that the sport should be the beneficiary of his nation’s largesse, even if it means his own citizens continue to go unhoused, unfed and unschooled. Two months ago Kadyrov invited a team of former Brazilian internationals, drawn primarily from the World Cup winning squad of 1994, to play in a friendly match designed to show what a safe place Chechnya was provided its leader was allowed to have his way. Kadyrov scored two goals as Brazil’s senior citizens miraculously (and perhaps unwisely) beat the local team lead by their president and ace striker. The portly potentate made a similar gesture last night, this time providing a moment in the spotlight for such impoverished members of football’s underclass as Diego Maradona, Luís Figo, Steve McManaman and property’s Robbie Fowler. Read the rest of this entry →