The Tambov Gang from Saint Petersburg is an enthusiastic criminal outfit, with smelly fingers crammed into lots of dirty pies. There have been whispers of drug trafficking, contract killing, and now one of their key Spain-based activists, Gennadios Petrov, is caught up in a football scandal, with mutterings that he paid somewhere between 20 and 40 million Euros to buy Zenit St Petersburg the UEFA Cup earlier in the year. According to an investigation by high profile Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon (the one who made General Pinochet move to Surrey), wiretaps on the Russian gang as they hatched their dastardly plots in various Spanish cities gave the impression that Bayern Munich in the semi-final and Rangers in the final were both the recipients of Eastern European generosity.
Regardless of how much money these people of the night had access to, however, nobbling a top professional side is no walk in the park. While conspiracy theorists will be salivating at the prospect of a new mystery to pick over, the sharp-eyed
The last time Rangers played in a proper European final, in Barcelona against Dynamo Moscow in 1972, General Franco was still directing policing operations in Spain. Unfortunately for the old fascist, his forces of law and order found Rangers fans in a boisterous mood, as they celebrated their win by joining the players on the pitch before the game was over. The truncheons of the fat-bellied Guardia Civil were no match for the granite-headed protestants, and the soundly thrashed police were forced to beat a humiliating retreat, thus guaranteeing a warm welcome for all Scots in Barcelona for years to come. According to Graham Hunter, writing in Scotland’s Daily Herald, the referee in that game, one Sr. Ortiz, refutes the idea
If I suddenly gained the ability to travel into the future, one of my first acts would be to inform Wikipedia readers of the result of future games. A time/ space continuum-shattering Glasgow Rangers fan has obviously had the same idea, and has kindly saved us the effort of watching tomorrow night’s UEFA Cup Final:
“A battling performance from Zenit St Petersburg proved to not be enough in the UEFA cup Final against a much more superior Glasgow Rangers side on May 14th 2008 when Zenit succumed to a 2-1 defeat at the City Of Manchester Stadium, goals from Jean Claude Darcheville and Barry Ferguson on the 21st and 65th minute proved to be enough for the teddy bears to secure their first European trophy in 36 years.”
If you have faith in the Scottish Nostradamus, have a punt using the best odds available on the interweb here.
