Thought to be agents of the Russian military intelligence unit GRU, the two men are suspected to have poisoned participants in ‘The Kharine’ held at the Hoop & Grapes on Farringdon Road.
Kharine managers have repeatedly denied reports Kenna League-backed doping. They claim the CCTV image ‘proves beyond doubt the Russians are behind everything’.
The manager of Breivik Babes, who finished fourth from bottom in the Kharine, says Russian interference cost him the chance of winning the competition.
He said: “During the Kharine auction I was briefly mindless and when I came to I’d bought Mauro Icardi. He wasn’t even in the Argentina squad.
“The Russians are definitely behind this. You’d never find me getting high at a Kenna auction.”
The Kharine ‘poisoning’ was so widespread a manager absent from the auction ended up winning the competition putting in silent bids from New York.
PIKOV Scuminov lifted the Dmitri Kharine World Cup yesterday but their manager says ‘it doesn’t feel right’ as he remotely bid in the auction.
Antoine Greizmann got a goal and an assist to become the second-highest individual scorer at the tournament and help ‘the Scum‘ secure the Kenna-Kharine double in 2018.
“Muted celebrations in the office as winning without attending the auction doesn’t feel right,” said the Scum boss about calling into last month’s London auction from his New York base.
The Scum manager has clearly forgotten the controversy of the Emerson World Cup four years ago, when the Testiculadewland manager won the tournament after a ‘tactical no show’ at the auction.
“We don’t want to send a message managers have more chance of winning World Cups if they don’t show up to the auction,” read a statement from the chairman last night.
Given the leaked Wada report about several managers testing positive for banned substances at the event last month, many believe the auction is fast becoming the last place to find a successful fantasy football manager.
Special Kharine mention goes to Putin More Russians Puns, who after a nervy group stage raced up the table in the knockout round to take surprise third place, mainly thanks to Eden Hazard and Kylian Mbappe.
Sadly, for the PMRP manager cash prizes are only being awarded to first and second place.
Better luck next time goes to Test Team (Please Ignore). Having come last in the Kharine, their manager can look forward to a few nights in the gulag where a hand job from Pussy Riot will be the least of his problems.
THE Pikov Scuminov manager says his rivals must have ‘all been on drugs’ after going 10 points clear at the top of the Dmitri Kharine World Cup table this week.
Bidding remotely from the US, the Scuminov boss only signed a handful of players at the auction last month including Antoine Greizmann for £28m and Timo Werner for £32m.
He picked up leftovers after the event, such as the unsigned defender Miranda, for £0.5m.
“You guys must have all been on drugs for no-one to have bid for the Brazil captain or gone above £5m for Diego Godin,” said the Pikov Scuminov manager.
Whether Kharine managers were on drugs or not at the auction is still being investigated by the World Anti Doping Agency after several urine samples tested positive for banned substances.
Kharine managers are pleading their innocence but Wada says managerial decision making at the auction is building a strong case against them.
“The Test Team (Please Ignore) manager signed a back three of Medhi Benatia, Kalidou Koulibaly and Nikola Milenkovic,” begins a leaked extract from the damning Wada report.
“The Lokomotiv Leeds manager spent £26m on strikers from Saudi Arabia and South Korea.
“The Breivik Babes manager signed Mauro Icardi. He wasn’t even named in the Argentina squad.
“Fat Ladies started the tournament with tennis player Maria Sharapova in attack.
“How can we draw any other conclusion than these people were out of their tiny little minds?”
A source at Kenna HQ refuted the allegations.
“Has Wada never been to a Kenna auction before? These managers weren’t doping, they’ve just always been a bit slow.”
TWO matches to go for all players left in the tournament and the Kharine is a two horse race.
Pikov Scuminov (175 points – Sterling, Greizmann, Mertens) have the strongest hand with three attacking starters and at least one bound to appear in the ‘traditionally a goal fest’ third place game.
The manager of I Knew Sterling Would F*ck It Up! (168 – Strinic, Lukaku, Rashford, Dembele) relies on clean sheets and substitute appearances.
Kharine organiser the vice chairman has hinted there will only be cash prizes for first and second place, but this remains unconfirmed and four sides jostle for the honour of third:
One remarkable similarity between the last four nations left in Russia is their disciplinary record. Not one country has seen red and aside from Croatia (12) yellow cards have been sparse for England (5), Belgium (7) and France (8).
In a recent football history where the French throw their toys out the pram and sulk on the team coach, an England player cracks under pressure at a crucial moment or Marouane Fellaini, can those remaining hold their nerve?
Conversely, while the England football team has committed the fewest fouls of the remaining nations, their supporters continue to prove their fellow countryman Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection with a series of celebration-related incidents.
@AskPaddyPower What are the odds of numbers of Englishmen to die in celebration-related injuries over the next seven days?
I stepped into the stuffy entrance hall and closed the front door behind me. The smell intensified as I stood there listening for any movement. It was as quiet as a Berlin fan park at the end of the group stage, and just as threatening.
Carefully I began to walk through the flat. The remains of a takeaway and a six Jamaican lager beers for five pounds deal was on the coffee table in the lounge along with some curious-looking DVDs, but other than the flat looked as untouched as the Spain quarter final hotel booking.
As I approached what I guessed was the bedroom the pungent smell grew stronger. I turned the knob and as the door creaked open I had to cover my face with my arm.
There were flies everywhere. Big, blue and green blow flies that buzzed like a Balkan midfield during a useful spell of possession. At the centre of the black mass of insects lying on the bed was the shape of what used to be a living being, naked except for the flies, a pair of pants around its ankles and a brown leather belt around its neck.
Even in the midst of the city’s heatwave, where the clothes on broads became as minimal as their patience for men watching three games a day, there was no way this level of decomposition could happen this early in the tournament. It must have been here since just after he first round of group stage matches.
These days there were stiffs turning up all over the city. It was normally the work of the manager experiences department. Those Chekist bullies had people squibbed off for nothing more than bad table manners.
But this didn’t look like the work of a manager experiences button man. The place was too tidy, the drawers weren’t overturned and the corpse was still in one piece.
My hand over my mouth I moved in for a closer inspection. The flies continued to foam around the dark opening of the mouth. The eyes were sunk back into the skull, deeper than Belgian wingbacks in the opposition half, and just as shifty looking.
The expression on the face when he’d faced the big one was still there. It looked like a blunted Argentine attack, not sure whether it was just about coming into form or never finding it again.
I returned to the entrance hall and dialled Kenna HQ.
“Put me through to the vice chairman’s office. Tell him it’s urgent,” I barked at the secretary, the smell had stripped me of my politer conversation. By now she recognised my voice.
The phone clicked and the vice chairman was there.
“What have you got?” he said. He didn’t sound in a good mood, like a Colombian after losing a penalty shootout.
“I’ve found him,” I told the vice chairman.
“You’re sure?” he perked up.
“Yes, and he’s been dead for sometime.”
“Was it manager experiences? I knew the chairman would be behind this,” he began to jabber, but I interrupted him before he could lay out his whole, whacky conspiracy theory.
“He wasn’t blipped off by anyone else. It looks like he choked himself off while he choked himself off, if you get my meaning. There’s some pretty wild smut in the lounge. And he’s been dead for some time.”
The vice chairman breathed heavily at the end of the phone before saying: “Alright, collect your pay next time you’re here.”
I hung up. Before I left the flat I took one last look at the poor sucker in the bedroom I’d been hunting down for the last two weeks.
GERMANY’s biggest defeat in Russia since the Battle of Stalingrad was bad news for 13 of the 16 Dmitri Kharine World Cup managers.
More money was spent on Germans at the Kharine auction than on players from any other nation.
Shelling out £193m on the Teutonic flops, Kharine managers also spent more on average per German player: £14.85m.
Timo Werner was the most expensive German. He cost Pikov Scuminov £32m and returned just one assist, although his poor form didn’t stop the side top scoring this round to keep hold of second place.
The manager of I Knew Sterling Would F*ck It Up! was one of only three competitors not to sign a German. His team stay top of the Kharine.
Sporting Lesbian signed the second-most expensive Die Mannschaft player, Thomas Muller for £30m. His only contribution was a yellow card.
For £27m, Goulash County bought Jerome Boateng and got two goals conceded and a red card in return.
Belgians were the next most popular with Kharine managers with an average spend per player of £14.25m.
Romelu Lukaku (I Knew Sterling Would F*ck It Up!) and Kevin de Bruyne (The Breivik Babes) both went for more than £30m although their managers will be disappointed they missed out on last night’s training game in Kaliningrad.
Discounting the folly of the Lokomotiv Leeds manager who saw fit to splash out £26m on a South Korean and Saudi strike partnership, France was the third most expensive country when it came to player sales: £11.21m per player on average.
Of the 16 managers to compete in the Kharine, 14 signed French players, alongside Argentina and England the most players purchased of any nationality.
I KNEW Sterling Would F*ck It Up! eased to the top of the Kharine table after the second round of matches knocking bitter rivals FC Testiculadew into second place.
Lukaku (12 points), Allison (7), Giminez (7), Strinic (7), Shaqiri (6), Tadic (5) and Bernado Silva (5) ensured IKSWFIU! could do without a single point from Angel Di Maria, Marcus Rashford and Ousmane Dembele.
FCT saw their early 21-point lead over Pikov Scuminov cut to just nine points, as every player for Scuminov continues to contribute to their total.
Ironically, Scuminov’s Raheem Sterling looks like he’s f*cking it up but still managed to be his team’s highest scorer this round with eight points.
Lubyanka B launched from mid-table obscurity into fourth with a brace from Musa and goals from Lingard and Kroos and clean sheets from Soares, Marcelo and Muslera.
Test Team (Please Ignore) sunk to last place in the table with Goretzka and Tim Cahill yet to make a Kharine appearance and £38m Lionel Messi appearing to suffer a mental breakdown during Thursday evening’s game.
SEVERAL managers tested positive for banned substances at the Dmitri Kharine World Cup auction last Tuesday to put the outcome of the competition into doubt.
FC Testiculadewland took the lead after the first round of matches courtesy of Cristiano Ronaldo (17 points), Aleksander Kolorov (12) and Diego Costa (12), but the World Anti-Doping Agency is investigating reports most Kharine managers failed a urine test.
The Kenna League vice-chairman had organised the auction for the first time and in unprecedented scenes produced a collection of test tubes filled with a yellow liquid.
Over the course of the evening it emerged several managers were competing under the influence of performance ‘enhancing’ drugs, countless pints of lager and shots of Beluga vodka.
Until the Wada investigation is complete, the Kharine is forging ahead with the group stages.
FC Testiculadewland’s bitter rivals I Knew Sterling Would F*ck It Up lie six points off the lead in second thanks to Romelu Lukaku (12), Jose Giminez (12) and Simon Kjaer (7).
Remote bidder the Pikov Scuminov manager is some way adrift in third after solid performances from Dries Mertens (7), Antoine Greizmann (7), Diego Godin (7) and Kasper Schmeichel (7).
