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aku baru tahu buku ni kena banned kat brunei...
patut pun kena banned....sensasi betul dia ceta pasal diraja sana...
masuk new paper.
CHELSEA EXPOSED
He's a Scouser who wants to get even with Chelsea. When the Blues visited Brunei in 1997, some of their antics disgusted STANLEY PARK, a British expatriate who once worked in the sultanate. Park has devoted a chapter in his book, Fifa 192, to the players' behaviour inside Brunei's royal palace. He tells WANG MENG MENG why he disdains Chelsea
February 06, 2006
WHEREVER Chelsea go these days, controversy is never too far behind.
From Old Trafford to the Millennium Stadium to the Nou Camp, Jose Mourinho's ensemble make headlines, sometimes not for the right reasons.
According to Liverpudlian writer Stanley Park, Chelsea's history of provocation and aggravation was evident back in 1997, when they visited Brunei on a pre-season trip soon after winning the FA Cup.
The 45-year-old, who edited the Brunei Buzz magazine then, was the media adviser for a friendly between Brunei and the Blues.
And these incidents, some pleasant and others, unsavoury, were recorded in his book Fifa 192, which was released shortly after Liverpool's Champions League victory last season.
Park, who takes his pen name after the famous tract of land between Anfield and Goodison, believes that his book will stoke the fires of anti-Chelsea sentiment that is raging all over Planet Football.
He told The New Paper on Sunday: 'The preening, overbearing arrogance of the Blues predates Jose Mourinho by nine years.
'Fifa 192 has revelations of what the Chelsea players got up to pre- and post-match, besmirching yet again the already tainted reputation of English Premiership footballers.
'With the fateful visit of Chelsea, I saw it clearly for the first time that I'd been barking up the wrong League table. The shy, mild-mannered Brunei team was a completely different breed to Chelsea and their arrogant pit-bulls.'
In the book, Park was disappointed by the behaviour of a senior Blues official, nicknamed 'The Dreaded Dutchman', as the man from the Netherlands showed contempt of his hosts and told the press that he knew absolutely nothing about Brunei football and he thought that they were probably the worst team in the world.
Well, that observation is not that far off the mark, as Fifa 192 is so called due to the tiny nation's lowly world ranking.
But it was another character, a senior Chelsea player, that really made Park cringe.
Called 'Dennis the Menace', this spiky individual verbally abused the royalty with a stream of vulgarities, namely Prince Billah and Prince Malik, for not serving him beer during the team's visit to the palace.
Earlier, the players were shown Prince Billah's games room, which had a state-of-the-art virtual reality skiiing game.
As Gianluca Vialli tried his hand at it, Dennis the Menace leapt onto the machine, pushed the Italian away and donned the virtual reality goggles himself. And the troublemaker shocked the watching Park by simulating an obscene sexual act.
This pint-sized Menace later insulted Billah, by throwing a framed photograph of the Crown Prince on the floor before hurling more expletives.
Park blasted: 'Dennis the Menace is to cultural sensitivity what Saddam Hussein is to order in court. It was Chelsea's Italian trio of Vialli, Roberto Di Matteo and Gianfranco Zola who saved Chelsea's blushes in Brunei.
'As security threw the Chelsea team out of the palace after what had happened, it was Zola who got his team-mates to apologise for their bad behaviour.'
Surely, naming and shaming these big-name stars would have been enough for the Blues to slap him with a defamation suit.
The paperback writer calmly replied: 'No less than three lawyers have been employed to make the book litigation-proof.'
To date, Park has received no lawsuits from Stamford Bridge but his book, which also described the match-fixing phenomenon in Brunei football and royal family intrigue in great detail, is given the red card in Brunei.
'Due to the revelations in my book, Fifa 192 is banned in Brunei,' he added. 'Bookshops are not allowed to sell it and copies have been confiscated at the airport.'
But aside from a book-signing session at Borders yesterday, the main thing on his mind will be Liverpool's crunch fixture against Chelsea tonight.
To which, Park, a former season-ticket holder at Anfield, has already envisaged the end of the Blues' dominance.
He predicted: 'Their bubble will burst when Mourinho decides to move on, which he surely will. Abramovich will then be left with a broken toy and no Scouser, Geordie, Mancunian or Cockney will shed a tear!
'The way Abramovich came by his billions is well-documented. He basically profiteered from Russia's down-trodden mining communities.
'You couldn't get two teams more diametrically opposed - fan-base, politics, credo and traditions. Liverpool, dubbed the 'People's Team' after Diego Maradona saw the unique bond between the fans and the team in Istanbul, versus the Russian magnate's chocolate box of assorted superstars, representing fans who can pay 45 ($135) minimum entrance fees.
'For me, Chelsea stands for carpet-bagging capitalistic opportunism and loutish behaviour ... Liverpool, on the other hand, is about community, pride in playing for the club and in representing the country.'
Strong words indeed. And Park is just hours away from finding out if the Premiership champions will once again get away with blue murder or whether his Reds will provide him with a fairytale ending. |
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Post time 3-2-2006 11:15 AM
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