02.12.11
He Had To Go To Chechnya To Do It, But Ruud Gullit Has Found A Boss More Despicable Than Phillip Anschutz
Of his appointment as new manager of Chechnya side Terek Gronzy, Dutch international Ruud Gullit insists, “”I’m here for the sport, not the politics,…football brings joy. It’s a fun challenge to get people to embrace football. If I can make people happy, I’m happy.” Amongst the happy observers at the above press conference was Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-installed leader described by one critic as, “a lover of tracksuit bottoms and gold-plated pistols.” Gullit may or may not be fully aware of the human rights abuses Kadyrov’s been charged with, but the Guardian’s David Hills helpfully reminds us of a classic Wikieaks excerpt :
A US cable described Kadyrov arriving at a 2006 wedding party with “dozens of heavily armed mujahideen”, giving the couple a “5 kilo lump of gold”, “dancing clumsily with his gold-plated automatic stuck down the back of his jeans” and “showering child dancers with $100 bills”.
The best thing about penning the words, “top that, Donald Sterling/James D’ohlan”, is knowing there’s at least a 50/50 chance they’ll manage to do so.
