THE world is an increasingly horrible place and the sooner this is all over the better.
Take this week for example. Please, take it. Honestly, it was bloody awful and not just because the Diary had more dead horses than winners at the Cheltenham Festival.
And then came the sorry tale of one Bruno Fernandes de Souza, a pretty famous goalkeeper in Brazilian football whose career was interrupted ever so slightly by a seven year prison sentence.
What was his crime, you ask. Well, he tortured and murdered his girlfriend and then orders the body to be fed to his Rottweiler.
He’s now out, having served a fraction of his 22-year sentence, and would you believe it there is a club that wants to sign him, which we’ll get to in a minute.
The backdrop to this is astonishing. In May 2009 the married footballer, who had captained his Rio de Janeiro side to the top of league, met Eliza Samudio at a sex party popular with footballers.
According to reports, Fernandes became obsessed by her. She became pregnant and after refusing to have an abortion, in February 2010 gave birth to a baby boy, named Bruninho – little Bruno.
She went after the father for money, even taking him to court, and his response according to one newspaper was this; “In June she was lured, with her son, into a car with the promise that Fernandes was going to give her a house. Instead she was pistol-whipped and driven to Fernandes’s apartment, where she was tied to a chair and tortured for six days, in front of her son.”
Apparently there was an entire crew who took turns to beat her. Lovely.
Her body was then chopped up and fed to the dogs, with the bones buried in concrete. Her body was dumped in a favela.
The cops quickly worked out what had happened but as Fernandes walked into court to face a murder charge in 2013, he told reporters he had a “clear conscience” and added: “In the future, I’ll be able to laugh at this.”
So now he’s out for some reason and instead of being shunned by the beautiful game was signed by of Boa Esporte of Brazil’s third division.
“In Brazil we do not condemn people to death or to prison forever,” said Rone Moraes da Costa, owner of the club, in a statement on their Facebook page. “Therefore, when a prisoner is released, they can find means of forming part of society; working and gaining dignity through work.”
And, you have to imagine, Fernandes is indeed laughing about. I challenge you take all of this in and not go to dark place. And by that I mean psychologically. Not Helsinki in the winter.
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On to less gruesome stuff now and to the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers who dragged themselves into the 18th century for voting to allow burds to become members of Muirfield, thus getting the East Lothian links back on the Open rota.
Over a 100 still voted against it which is to be expected as they are so old they can remember a time when women had yet to be invented.
The Diary was once inside the club house during the Open when hacks are allowed to walk the corridors much to the annoyance of the regulars.
One in our company was loudly chastised for wearing “denims” which did not meet up to the standards of one of the gentlemen. And they say golf is aloof.
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Footage appeared on social media of Celtic players Scott Brown and Craig Gordon singing in a bar, seemingly with a few drinks in them, after a day at Cheltenham.
It was shocking, an utter disgrace and not the way we want such role models to behave.
They were singing a song by The Killers, a band so bland they make Top Gear seem edgy. Now if they had been signing a Jesus and Mary Chain song, you would let them off.
What is it with footballers and crap music?
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This did remind me of Ally McCoist’s run-in with Graeme Souness during their time together at Rangers after the bold Ally jumped in a car after training and was driven to the Festival.
McCoist felt he had been given the green light to go, his manager disagreed, and he dropped his star striker for an Old Firm Scottish Cup tie, which Celtic against the odds went on to win.
“I was absolutely furious and felt I could have helped the team rather than sitting in the stand,” McCoist would recall later.
“I went to visit my mum after the game and was sent for fish suppers, A Celtic fan wandered into the chippy, dressed head to toe in green, and had obviously overdone the bevy.
“I was doing my best to be ignored but he clocked me, stumbled over and said; “Awrite, Ally. You were the only one of them at the races today.”
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