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Soccer fans can go to Hell, as Michael Jackson statue unveiled

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Millionaire Mohamed Al Fayed has told fans of his soccer club Fulham FC, to go to hell, if they do not like his gift of a 7 foot 6 inch statue of Michael Jackson.

Today at its unveiling, Al Fayed responded to criticism over the relevance of having a $150,000, two-and-a-half ton monument to the King of Pop, outside Fulham’s stadium, Craven Cottage:

‘Why is it bizarre? Football fans love it. If some stupid fans don’t understand and appreciate such a gift they can go to hell. I don’t want them to be fans. If they don’t understand and don’t believe in things I believe in they can go to Chelsea. They can go to anywhere else.

‘People will queue to come and visit it from all over the UK and it is something that I and everybody else should be proud of.’

Al Fayed was friends with Jackson, and once invited the singer to attend a soccer match at Craven Cottage in 1999.

Al Fayed is proabably best known as the former owner of the legendary department store Harrod’s, and as the father of Dodi Al Fayed, the “boy friend” of Diana, Princess of Wales, who was killed alongside the Princess in the infamous car crash in Paris in 1997. Al Fayed has famously maintained a campaign to prove MI6 were behind the killing of his son and the Royal Princess.

One fan of Fulham FC, Lee Robinson told the Contact Music:

“Why us? Fulham football fans do not want a statue of Michael Jackson. It’s completely mad. He’s got nothing to do with us. To be honest, he’s the last person you’d want there.”

However, not all fans agree, this from the Guardian:

The former Fulham player Kit Symons, who is now Under-18s manager at Fulham, defended Al Fayed’s decision. “It is great,” he said. “The big thing is it is obviously something that the chairman feels very, very passionately about and he has decided to erect this statue and fair dos to him.”

Speaking about the time of Jackson’s visit, he added: “It was just happy times. They were great times back then. The chairman obviously used to bring high profile people down the games. Tony Curtis was here a few weeks after and it was just fantastic times.”

Celebrity aside, the statue is just not that good, and looks more like a waxwork or one of those gaudy plaster statues found in a theme park. And of course, there is the bigger question of whether a sports club wants to be associated with a man who allegedly had questionable relationships with young boys?
 
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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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04.03.2011
07:19 pm
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