It takes a lot to get banned from owning a football club – neither state-sanctioned murder not heroin trafficking will do it – but Laurence Bassini managed it.
Bassini, a twice bankrupt 12-year-old trapped in a businessman’s body, served a three year ban following a catastrophic reign at Watford, which ended with him making off with £1.5 million in club cash and sending gloating texts to the local paper whenever they lost.
Now Bassini is back, and he’s hell bent on digging his filthy claws into troubled Championship side Birmingham.
The 52-year-old fantasist insists he is about to buy the club, and he made a batshit crazy phone call to Jim White and Simon Jordan’s Talksport show the other day.
It’s worth a listen – after teasing some “big news”, Lozza claims to be worth £235 million and insists “I’m going to win the league next season”.
And then he turns to his real goal – scoring playground points over Simon Jordan.
“Simon! You’re a failed owner of Crystal Palace” – Lozza shrieks, before hooting triumphantly, “Simon! You did a film with Kevin Spacey and it failed”, as if a successful movie with a notorious sexual predator would be something to brag about.
White and Jordan make some incredible, pained expressions throughout, here’s a taste.
They do a good job of mocking him too. When Bassini claims he’ll win the league, Jordan hits back with “the village idiot league?”
That probably explains this text Bassini sent him later…
Given the fact he lives on another planet, The Shot strongly suspects Mr Bassini does not have the funds to buy the club, but it’s going to be a hell of a Netflix doc if he somehow pulls it off.
There’s more, so much more, and we’ll keep it coming in future emails.
Claire Foden cemented her status as an Upshot Favourite last week when she took a punch and dished out a few of her own in a scrap with some horrible blokes abusing her son.
https://twitter.com/JonnorQuinn3/status/1495189064240320524
Ms Foden‘s formidable ring IQ will come as no surprise to longstanding fans of the Man City matriarch.
Last summer she got into a proper brawl at a female friend’s birthday party, leaving guest Katie Skitt with two black eyes and bite marks.
According to reports at the time:
A source said: “It all kicked off just after the male stripper had done a turn.
“Claire asked Katie for a cigarette, but what happened next is unclear as the Prosecco had been flowing.”
The row spilled out into the street in front of horrified neighbours and a bottle of vodka was hurled and smashed.
The source added: “Lots of people got involved. It was like something from an episode of Shameless. There was hair pulling, scratching and punching.”
Katie was left covered in blood and needed a tetanus jab after sustaining bite marks to her stomach and face. Pretty hardcore stuff.
Tell you who we’re really looking forward to seeing in the Premier League – Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis.
Back in his native Greece, the portly shipping magnate – who owns Olympiakos – has been accused of a series of colourful crimes, including heroin trafficking and match-fixing.
He denies all those charges, was acquitted of the heroin stuff and prosecutors dropped the match-fixing charges, but only after making some very colourful allegations.
They claimed Marinakis tried to pressure a referee into favouring Olympiakos in a crunch match. He refused, Olympiakos lost, and three days later there was a bomb attack on a bakery owned by the referee.
An Athens gallery owner had a similar story: she says she once refused to sell a valuable painting to him. Two days later, a group of men stormed the gallery and threw cups of yoghurt over her.
Marinakis also has a habit of visiting the referee’s dressing room during important matches – something he once explained as “just wishing them good luck”.
On Monday, we showed you a photo of two gents who brought a candelabra for their picnic at Royal Ascot.
We contrasted it with tailgating, an American pre-match tradition where rednecks barbecue meat and turn their pick up trucks into makeshift jacuzzis while guzzling down revolting drinks in red plastic cups.
See above for photos of both.
We asked you which you’d prefer: Tailgating or Quailgating. Now the results are in, and it’s a dead heat between the Candelabra-wielding softies and the rednecks stuffing their faces with BBQ while knee deep in slurry.
But neither were as popular as dragging your genitals through broken glass.
While we’re on the topic of posh picnics at sports events, The Upshot once had the misfortune to attend the sailing regatta Cowes Week, where we overheard a ruddy-faced, gout-ridden old toff yell, “You can shag my daughter and bugger my son, but never cut the nose off my brie“.
True story.
The unwritten mantra of Ben Stokes’ England team: if it feels good, do it. Pre-match football games are back. The batsmen are doing it with their dicks on the pitch.
And when it comes to celebrating a win, they finish up student-style: a doner meat and chips at a local kebaby.
Guessing Stokesy won’t bring back nightclub scraps though…
P.S. Has Joe Root always worn that necklace? It’s very Mr Steal Your Girl.
Scandal Down Under, where a video has surfaced of AFL star Bailey Smith greedily wolfing down some coke on the sticky dancefloor of a Gold Coast nightclub.
In the clip, a girl repeatedly demands a straw to snort the powder, but Bailey just does it off the back of his hand. Respect that – probably how they do it in the Bush.
He might have got away with it too, if it hadn’t been for these photos he sent, which ended up in the press.
Fairly damning, although frankly one look at the bloke’s mullet/moustache combo should tell you here’s a gearhead through and through.
