As imagined by Brian Beacom
LOOK, the first thing I’m going to say is that I really have nothing to say at all, because as you know I say nothing to journalists ever. You are more likely to get your Nicola Sturgeon to outline her North Sea oil plans. Although I have to admit she has made a lot of dead witches in Scotland very happy.
But I will allow my interpreter to tell you nothing on my behalf, because he tells me the PR people say I need to defend my reputation a little. He quotes to me that great Russian parable; ‘The more plastic bags you wrap around a dog turd, the harder it is for outsiders to realise what’s inside. And it’s best if your plastic bags say Bond Street on them.’
So here is my Bond Street packaging around the Chelski story, the club I dreamed of owning as a boy – or it could have been Real Madrid, Manchester United, Inter Milan . . . anyway, yes, Chelski is now losing more backers than Boris during his Partygate time.
However, you have to consider how I rescued the club from near poverty. When I came here the players were on starvation wages of £10k a week. Now, that figure is a healthier £400k.
Anyway, how can players be expected to live on less? Do you realise how expensive it is to fill a Ferrari Testarossa with Morrisons' petrol these days? And remember; this club could have become Stenhousemuir. But not so well run.
Yes, you say that has something to do with the situation in Ukraine. But I have nothing to do with politics. Maybe there are rumours I once lived inside the Kremlin in one of Boris Yeltsin’s apartments. And I was once a state governor. But just because I am considered a close friend of Vladimir Putin and we holiday together and our lives are interconnected does not mean I know him at all.
And to those who are now saying that my steel company has been helping to build Russian tanks? Niet! They are very, very wrong. It’s septic tanks we build, my PR woman tells me, used to collect the putrid material that spews out of the pro-democracy media companies in Russia.
Does Vlad The Lad, sorry Mr Putin, feel regret about having invaded Ukraine, even if he did? How can this be possible? Great statesmen never admit to wrong decisions about invasion and wars and destroying lives until at least 10 years have passed. Just ask Tony Blair.
And you Scottish journalists must not become too smug. You still have your shell companies operating from up a close in East Kilbride. Scotland’s laundromats are not all sexy ones like Nick Kamen used in the blue jeans advert.
But, look, let’s forget all this. In a couple of years, the Russian money will again be playing Monopoly in Britain. Just ask Boris.
Meantime, this is International Kindness week. Why not show a little kindness to oligarchs?
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