While we’re bathing in the murky swamp of French football, here’s another one for you, starring the French FA’s 81-year-old president, NoëlLe Graët.
Monsieur Le Graët is suing a sports magazine for libel after they published a string of texts he allegedly sent to female colleagues, including:
“I prefer blondes, so if you fancy it…”
“Come to my place for dinner tonight.”
You’re awfullycurvy, I would definitely put you in my bed.”
According to insiders, the spectacled bigwig has a reputation for unwanted advances – as one co-worker put it: “It’s very simple, he jumps on anything that moves.”
This latest episode of sleaze was yet another exposé from renowned hack Romain Molina, who has built an entire career on unmasking the sordid miscreants of French football.
It takes a lot to dethrone Magnus Carlsen: a strategic mind, a calm temperament and – apparently – vibrating analbeads.
That’s according to rumours circulating after the Norwegian chess God lost to an abrasive 19-year-old upstart who has a history of cheating in online matches.
Carlsen pulled out of the tournament after his defeat to Hans Niemann, and posted a video of Jose Mourinho saying “if I speak, I am in trouble”, leading to speculation that his opponent was somehow cheating.
The theory is that someone was watching, pitting Carlsen’s moves against a supercomputer and then communicating the best riposte to Niemann remotely.
Security frisk the players before matches, which rules out any more obvious devices, but it does raise the possibility that the 19-year-old had something in his prison pocket, and thus the analbeads theory was born.
Niemann denied using the ruse, telling an interviewer: “They want me to strip fully naked? I’ll do it.”
Elton Jantjies has officially cemented his position as the game’s biggest wrong un’ – South Africa have sent their fly-half home after it emerged he was secretly knobbing the team dietician.
According to our sources in Mbombela, Elton and Zeenat Simjee (pictured above) snuck out of the team hotel and checked into their own place, where their loud shagging kept guests awake late into the night.
They racked up a £1300 bill buying champagne and candlelit dinners before doing a runner. Apparently some of the money went on flowers which were accompanied by a note where Jantjies professed his love to Simjee.
Elton, who is married with three kids, was already having a fairly wild 2022 – he was arrested on a plane in May after drunkenly banging on a toilet door until his fists bled as he screamed “come out ma darling” in Afrikaans at an Emirates stewardess who had locked herself inside.
As the fallout from Chelsea’s sacking of Thomas Tuchel continues, an excellent story is circulating about the Blues’ meddling new owner Todd Boehly.
According to rumours, the American billionaire called Tuchel in for a player recruitment meeting soon after he bought the club.
There, he presented a proposed line up for the team this season. Tuchel was mildly annoyed by the omission of goalkeeper Edouard Mendy and the selection of 37-year-old Ronaldo up front, but there was a far more concerning detail.
The proposed starting line up contained 12 players, with the outfield ones laid out in a rare 4-4-3 formation…
Besides his penchant for scrapping with police and knobbing his teammates’ wives, AFL legend WayneCarey loves nothing more than a bit of nose powder on the sly.
Back in 2012, he walked into a prison with traces of cocaine all over his clothes, leading him to lament: ‘‘I would wee in a cup now, I would’ve weed in a cup yesterday. [I] was never offered to wee in a cup and was never offered to do a strip search.”
Well, old Wazza might finally get to have that wee after all, because he’s in the soup again. The crime this time: accidentally dropping a bag of white powder and some bank notes on the blackjack table at a Perth casino.
The Channel Nine pundit quickly stuffed them back in his pocket and snuck off, but staff booted him out of the casino.
Needless to say, Wayne has an “I slipped, fell and landed arse-first on the ketchup bottle”-style excuse, claiming the bag actually contained “crushed up anti-inflammatory drugs”.
Incidentally, here’s an extract from Carey‘s 2009 autobiography:
I’d always been told and taught to deny, deny, deny, unless you have been caught red-handed.
And even if you have been caught red-handed you still deny, deny, deny.
During his glittering career, Arsenal legend LeeDixon was known for his sharp mind and cool head on the pitch.
But those qualities deserted him on Sunday, when an innocent question about why goalkeepers don’t wear hats any more led him to speculate that the whole climate change thing might be some sort of illuminati hoax.
Speaking on American TV, the Arsenal legend asked commentator Arlo White: “Why don’t goalkeepers wear caps any more? It’s all changed since the 70s.”
But rather than slipping into cosy nostalgia for a bygone era, Dixon‘s query took a conspiratorial turn:
“All goalies used to wear caps when it was sunny. And now we’ve got global warming… allegedly“.
Before Lee could go full tin foil hat and accuse referee Paul Tierney of being some sort of shapeshifting lizard nonce, White waded in with a more prosaic explanation for the lack of caps on keepers’ heads: the stands are taller in stadiums these days, blocking the sun.
