Its not zhi Germans, its zi Russians!

I've been talking about football (soccer) recently, and I have something related to say about it today as well.

I support London-based Arsenal Football Club, and have done so for many years. Some of you might be familiar with Chelsea FC which was taken over by a Russian oligarch named Roman Abramovich, who is one of the richest people in the world. He has brought the team a lot of money to spend on players and the team has done better on the pitch after the Russian came on board. Unfortunately, Abramovich's presence also has cast quite a shadow over Chelsea, since now the team has an unsavory reputation, and is generally not very well regarded amongst other team's fans. This is because Abramovich has quite a shady past since the collapse of the soviet union.

As an Arsenal fan I have watched this Chelsea mess from a far and have had a jolly good time with it. It's been fun to call Chelsea "Chelski" and watch as they spend ridiculous amounts of cash on petty ukranian wannabe-superstars (SHEVCHENKO!).

Now though, that time is coming to an end as a few weeks ago another Russian oligarch with an even worse reputation bought 15% of Arsenal FC. His name is Alisher Usmanov, and to say the least, he has a very unsavory reputation. I don't have the balls to actually recite all I have found out about this guys, since tens of blogs around the internet have been threatened with lawsuits from Usmanov's lawyers, just because they talked shit about the guy.

Now it might sound a bit hilarious but get this : a few years ago a journalist wrote a book about Usmanov's shady past before and after the collapse of the mighty Soviet Union. Usmanov was actually in jail for 6 years for crimes he did do, yet was later pardoned. Now this journalist wrote this book even though he was warned by Usmanov's lawyers. A year or two later, the journalist was shot and killed.

Spooky.

Maybe I should watch my back from now on too. Scary eh?

The funny thing is, these types of aggresive moves into international sports by Russian oligarchs is giving a bad reputation for Russia on the whole. That is a shame since I myself have a few Russian friends who are really great and from what they've told me about their home country, I would really like to visit it.