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.