Soca Warriors Online Discussion Forum
Sports => Football => Topic started by: FLi ! on June 28, 2008, 10:10:31 AM
-
Colombian footballer accused of machine-gun shooting spree
(THE INDEPENDENT UK)
As a player in the world's top football leagues, Faustino Asprilla was unpredictable; there were overhead kicks, outlandish goal celebrations and incredible turns. Off the pitch, it was a similar pattern; there were car accidents, dalliances with porn stars and stormy encounters with managers.
And it seems the star Colombian who graced two World Cups and became a hero to fans in England, Italy, Brazil and Argentina, is leading a similarly unconventional life in retirement.
For Asprilla – or Two-goal Tino as he was known during a spell with Newcastle United in the 1990s – has been charged with going on a shooting spree with a machine gun near his farm in south-west Colombia. The 38-year-old is under house arrest on charges related to illegal possession of weapons and criminal damage, his lawyer, Carlos Sanchez, said. He is accused of spraying a security checkpoint with gunfire in April. The post was hit by 28 bullets but nobody was hurt. He denies the charge.
Security guards say Asprilla reacted violently when they refused to allow his friends, three women and a bodyguard, past a checkpoint. Asprilla was reported to have said: "Seven people who were with me have not yet testified, and so I think it's a bit bit premature for me to be convicted.
"In fact, it reminds me of a movie I saw called Minority Report, in which people end up in jail even before you've committed the crime or even been tried."
Asprilla, born in the impoverished city of Tulua in 1969, has been guilty of firearms offences before. In 1995, he fired eight shots in the air outside a disco in his homeland. That earned him a suspended sentence. But the furore afterwards led to him having 24-hour protection by armed guards.
It was partly with his own personal safety in mind that he left to play for Italian team Parma, before a fall-out with manager Nevio Scala took him to England.
After struggling for a work permit because of his firearms conviction, he won the hearts of fans on Tyneside with memorable goals and was voted the sixth-best player in the world in 1996. The same year he was thrown off the Colombia World Cup squad for criticising his coach's tactics.
He quit international football in 2000 and played for minor clubs in Italy, Brazil, and Mexico, and won widespread publicity for his appearance in a reality TV series and a nude photo-shoot for a Brazilian magazine.
He almost did a deal to play for League 2 team Darlington as a favour to that club's chairman George Reynolds, a millionaire later jailed for tax evasion. Asprilla was paraded on the club's pitch in front of a packed crowd. But the day he was to sign the contract he fled, and has not been back to the UK since.
-
damn...he should write a book...this fella really live life dred
-
Lived life? What kind of life? He is the definition of Temperamental. Dat man was in traffic on de way to a game In Italy. He jump out he Beamer, left de door open, walk away and he disappeared. Yuh eh see he suck a crazy seed. De man was like de Dennis Rodman of football minus de cross dressing and lipstick. Nutten in dis world could make dem wild spirited people happy.
-
The man was a forward. His first instinct is to shoot....
-
The man was a forward. His first instinct is to shoot....
:rotfl: :rotfl:
so in dat case, is a good ting his precision off the field doh meet up to his old standards on it eh?....unless he just firing blanks........which is hard to conceive, since is tree woman was comin to check out he "arsenal".
:devil:
-
Put yuh hand on the August/September issue of Champions magazine ... good interview nuggets with Asprilla ... he says Pacho came in the dressing room crying like a baby at the 94 WC when he got the threats regarding playing Barrabas Gomez ... says he should have played in Brazil earlier in his career b/c he learned more there than anywhere else ... has praise for Scolari ... says Shearer packs the most powerful free kick he's seen.
-
P.S dahis de second report ah read in a week of Pacho coming into a dressing room in a state ... Hmmm ... de other was de Alvin Corneal Bermuda pep talk
-
... this weekend Tino's farm was robbed by a band of about 10 ... they took trophies, stereo and other electronic equipment, cell phones etc.
Hmmmm.
-
Sunday before last, Asprilla celebrated his 50th birthday in style and invited his teammates to his farm to play a match to mark the occasion.
https://www.youtube.com/v/PolDvgmxuVI
Recently it was reported by the BBC that ...
Former Colombia and Newcastle striker Faustino Asprilla says he had to convince a hitman not to kill Paraguay goalkeeper Jose Luis Chilavert after a World Cup qualifying match in 1997.
Asprilla told Colombian television channel TelePacifico that the gunman called his hotel room after he and Chilavert were both sent off in the match, which Paraguay won 2-1.
"Are you crazy?" he recalls saying.
"You will destroy Colombian football. What happens on the pitch stays there."
Asprilla, who was speaking on a documentary to celebrate his 50th birthday last weekend, was one of the top names in Colombian football in the 1990s, scoring 20 goals in 57 appearances for his country.
Colombia defender Andres Escobar was shot dead outside a bar in Medellin in 1994, in apparent retribution for an own goal he scored days earlier that hastened the country's exit from the World Cup in the United States.
The story is a bit more expansive than this summary. Chilavert allegedly spat on Asprilla and the ref didn't see it ... the call Asprilla got was to invite him to the hotel where Julian Ferro, the gunman, was ... once there the request was made. Asprilla says Chilavert was a known spitter who had previously spat on/at Valderrama and others (https://youtube.com/PmnpuTXHrxI). In his time Chilavert was despised by many footballers. Oscar Ruggieri wanted to injure him and went into a tackle with the deliberate intention of 'doneing' him at his knees. (https://www.youtube.com/fQv4MT4e2fs)