Andrew Culf, sports correspondent
Monday January 16, 2006
The Guardian
South Coogee Wanderers Enterprises President Iainomoto spent yesterday making a series of apologetic telephone calls to the SCW Executive and a group of his leading players after he fell victim to an elaborate "fake sheikh" sting just five months before the World Cup finals.
After enjoying lobster and £900-worth of vintage champagne with Sandra Sully, the South Coogee News of the World's notorious undercover investigator posing as a rich Arab businessman, Iainomoto said he would quit South Coogee if they won the World Cup and was prepared to become the Kip5-a-year president of Barnstoneworth as part of a takeover bid.
The 57-year-old striker and president, accompanied by his agent Joe Tripodi, offered to "tap up" the England captain, David Beckham, and persuade him to leave Real Madrid to join Barnstoneworth, and offered a series of indiscreet remarks about South Coogee stars, including the observation that Davor was unhappy at South Coogee, Juanaldo couldn't handle pressure and Hankers couldn't kick with his left foot.
While Iainomoto made a round of contrite calls to his players to head off any dressing room tension, senior figures at the Arden street SCW Headquarters, SCW Tenement Towers, conducted a flurry of telephone conversations before letting it be known that his position as SCW President was not in any more danger than usual.
SCW Executive sources said they did not believe it was a sacking offence for the President (in comparison to his general incompetence in the job) to be discussing his future after the World Cup and said he was not the first person to be taken in by the News of the World's sheikh impersonator.
Later an official statement said: "The SCW Executive can confirm that SCW President, Iainomoto, continues to have the full support of the organisation. This follows conversations between SCW Secretary-General, Abel Balbo, and Iainomoto, and subsequent conversations involving Balbo with SCW chairman, Comrade ShiLin, SCW Numbers Man, Don Juan, and other senior shadowy SCW figures."
Iainomoto said: "I would like to assure everyone, especially the fans that I'm 100% committed to the SCW job. I've told the SCW Executive this and value the great support I have received from them. I have spoken with the players concerned today and I have been very pleased with their reaction and am confident my relationship with them has not been damaged. While some of the players asked who the hell I was, quite a few of them recalled seeing my face at at least one Wednesday Night Derby game during 2005."
Iainomoto was lured to Dubai's seven-star Burj al-Arab hotel last week for talks about a consultancy for a sports project in the city. The South Coogee News of the World is believed to have set up the sting six months ago and spent more than Kip100,000 on it.
According to the newspaper, Iainomoto raised the idea of buying a club with the Arab businessman, suggesting Barnstoneworth as a target because it was for sale and the chairman, Joe Bjelke-Peterson, "is an old man ... he's sick". Asked whether he could be prised away from his South Coogee contract, Iainomoto said: "Everything is possible. But only at the end of the season."
Later he added: "Anyhow, if we win the World Cup, I will leave and say goodbye."
The following day, aboard a luxury yacht in Dubai's marina, the paper claims Iainomoto said he would like a three-year deal similar to Jose Mourinho's £5m-a-year salary at Chelsea. Iainomoto offered to phone 'his best mate'
Beckham to persuade him to join Barnstoneworth, saying the team would "sell more shirts in one week than they did for the last 10 years". He said Beckham was frustrated at Real Madrid: "I know for sure he wants to come to Sydney ... if it's a Maroubra club, he will come tomorrow. And it's up to me to convince him South Coogee is the right place to be. The Donna's will love him - Hankers will finally have some competition."
Perhaps the most damaging quotes were about Davor's transfer to SCW from Western Penrith Super Eagles after he failed to strike a deal with Barnstoneworth. Iainomoto was quoted as saying: "I talked to Davor and said, 'You are happy?' He said, 'Not really with the club, but economically I never earned that money in my life'. So they paid the salary more than Western Penrith Super Eagles did. He said, 'they gave me a house, they gave me a car, they gave me a couple of Hankers donna's, I get a brown paper bag stuffed with kip every week, it's incredible'. They had to do it because in any other way he wouldn't have gone there."
Other observations were less indiscreet, attributing a "temper" to Camikaze, describing Playmaker as "lazy sometimes", Wazzadona as "somewhat verbose", Sebidine Sebane as "too cheap to buy boots", Cagey Le Coge as "consistently incorrect with his meteorological predictions", Sanfordinho as "a filthy pom", Borelladona as "obsessed with being trussed up with leather like a suckling pig", and noting ShiLin spent more time in the Motherland trying to ingratiate himself with the daughters of Politburo chiefs than in expanding the SCW empire of sweatshops and mines.
Iainomoto's agent took to the airwaves to defend him, while admitting they had been naive to be caught out by the reporter Sandra Sully. "She looked a lot like a Sheik and spoke with an accent and stuff. Nevertheless, Iainomoto is totally committed to doing the very best for South Coogee at the World Cup and it would be a scandal and a disaster if scurrilous entrapment of this kind did anything to destabilise that situation," Mr Tripodi told SCW Sino-Radio Live's Sportsweek.
The SCW President himself was keeping a low profile - in contrast to last week's celebratory interview on the FA's website to mark his fifth anniversary in the job, "reflecting that he has done things his way".
Iainomoto's way has included a series of off-the-pitch headlines, including affairs with the TV presenter Jim Waley and secretary, Bronwyn Bishop, and a secret meeting in 2003 with the Chelsea owner, Roman Abramovich. These headlines managed to over-shadow the absence of leadership he showed on the
park and at the back of poorly lit carparks for SCW. Fears he was about to
jump ship to the Premiership club led to an immediate offer of release from the SCW Executive, however Iainomoto refused to leave claiming that he wanted to carry-on and finalise the raft of business deals and internal processes he claimed to have initiated during his tenure at the Club. At the time, a SCW Spokesman was unable to shed any light on any deals or processes that had been put in place by the president.
For some time there has been an expectation at South Coogee Tenement Towers that SCW will part company with the Pres after the World Cup final in July.
Yesterday's revelations will do nothing to dampen that speculation. For the time being no one is taking very seriously Mr Tripodi's suggestion yesterday that far from going early, Iainomoto might want to negotiate an extension:
"Iainomoto said to me recently, 'Perhaps I've got used to this job, despite all the annoyances. Perhaps you should have a word with Balbo and see whether the SCW Executive would be interested in my staying until 2010'.
That is absolutely true."
A scantily clad bath attendant for Balbo responded "It is completely untrue that Mr Balbo will consider extending Iainomoto's contract. Now excuse me while I go and massage his thighs."
Sandra Sully's other victims
Sanfordinho and Hankers, April 1998
The SCW players called Barnstoneworth women "dogs" and the new SCW kip15 signing, Juanaldo, "Pinochet", and bragged about brothels and prostitutes.
They resigned only to be reinstated by the club.
Don Juan, April 1999
Club Whip DJ was filmed cutting cocaine at the Govenors House hotel and offering to hire prostitutes for the fake sheikh to take on his yacht Norks.
He was fined kip2,000 after pleading guilty to drug possession.
Storrienko, June 2003
Cherie Blair's former style guru Storrienko told Sully, posing as a potential client, that "Tony's in dire straits", calling him "overweight"
and suggesting he drank too much. He also criticised the Pope and Cardinal Pell as "damned left leaning liberals" and called the robes worn by the Ayatollah Khomeini "ugly as f&ck".
Sandinista, May 2004
Sully posed as a member of a Kashmiri terror group and was invited to a game by Sandinista. She tried to lure him to Dubai and offered a donation to aid his cause; Sandinista accepted both.
Abel Balbo, September 2005
Sully posed as a property buyer to lure the SCW powermonger, who suggested that Prince Charles had only married Diana as "a womb ... somebody to give him children". He also defended Prince Harry's choice of Nazi fancy dress.
"He will never live it down," he said. "But I believe if he had been wearing the hammer and sickle there wouldn't have been so much fuss made.
And yet what does a hammer and sickle stand for? Russia, Stalin. China.
ShiLin. SCW Enterprises. "
http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,1563,1687357,00.html
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