|
Abramovich to Give Chelsea Away  Brian Rocksmonde 13:51:47 |
| | Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich is said to have lost his football club in a card game last Sunday at Grosvenor Connoisseur Casino in London. According to a source in the casino security staff, the Chelsea Football Club was at stake in a poker game between Abramovich and some oil baron from Saudi Arabia whose name remains in secret. Under the gentleman's agreement, the Russian tycoon is to pass the club to the new owner by January 1, 2007 or pay off 300 million pounds to the lucky Arabian gambler.
Abramovich, who is Russia's wealthiest man according to U.S. magazine Forbes, has spent about 240 million pounds on players since his 140 million pound takeover at Stamford Bridge in 2003. He has been certainly on the way to reforming the club. He allegedly intended to appoint Chelsea striker Andriy Shevchenko as the club's president. Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has even accused him of stifling the competitiveness of European football by spending on players and sky-high television rights deals.
Now the future of both Chelsea and the international soccer remains unclear. But for Abramovich it may be simply a loss of the favourite toy, not a collapse. As well as investing in Chelsea, Abramovich, who is Governor of Chukotka, has injected much of his own money in building new homes and infrastructure for the previously impoverished region in Asian Russia.
The Sunday Times once characterized Roman Abramovich as one of the world's most reckless and venturous businessmen. And up to a certain moment good luck was with him. Are gods now laughing at the Russian tycoon? His wife has reportedly begun divorce proceedings which could cost Abramovich half his vast fortune. Irina Abramovich is turning to the lawyers because of recent revelations about a romance between the Chelsea football club owner and a 23-year-old daughter of Russian billionaire Alexander Zhukov
Well, this story may rate as Grosvenor Connoisseur's second best scandal this year. The first one one was at New Year's Eve, when a customer who usually spent around 50 pounds lost a reported 40,000 pounds. He lost his money then left the building and returned with a plastic bottle full of petrol. He emptied it over himself, spraying staff and gaming tables. |
| |  1 comment | Add comment |
|
| Hitech to will help English Bobbies? Brian Rocksmonde 12:29:08 |
| | 
You probably remember all this fuss about biometrical passports with all the necessary personal data in a microchip. Now we may witness a new plan aimed at helping officers check people's identities. A hand-held device is linked to a database of 6500000 fingerprints. Police say it will facilitate identification and save them lots of time. The new deviced will be widely tested in England and Wales over the next two months.
Officers will scan a car's number plates using a special camera that checks if it's subject to an offence, like being uninsured. If a vehicle is stopped, police will be able to identify the driver and passengers on the spot. At present about 60% of drivers stopped do not give their true identity. Currently an officer has to arrest a person and take them to a custody suite to fingerprint them.
Although officers promise prints will not be kept on file concerns have been raised about civil liberties.
The device has an accuracy of 94-95% and will be used for identification purposes only, according to police, and there are electronic safeguards to prevent misuse. |
| | 2 comment | Add comment |
offline
