Posted by
Ed Lilly on Wednesday, April 02, 2008 12:55:58 PM
Sports is a pretty fluffy topic on its own. But when you get sports mixed with sexual scandal, you get fluffy and (arguably) very amusing stuff. First, St Louis Arizona Cardinals quarterback Matt Leinart's situation:
After seeing Internet photos of Matt Leinart partying last weekend at his Arizona home, Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt said he was "disappointed" in his quarterback.
Among the four photos splashed across Web sites thedirty.com and TMZ.com over the weekend, Leinart was shown assisting a co-ed drinking from a beer bong in one and sharing a hot tub with four women in another. The photos ran on SportsCenter on Tuesday.
"Matt called me Monday morning and we spoke for a while," Whisenhunt said in a statement obtained by the East Valley Tribune. "I reiterated to him the type of behavior that we expect at all times from our players. He understands that as well as the level of scrutiny that he's under because of who he is. It's being handled internally.
Not great publicity for Leinart, the Cardinals, or the NFL. But hey, at least Leinart didn't have a story like this come out about him (h/t Mark Steyn at NRO's The Corner for the Euro version):
The son of infamous British wartime fascist leader Oswald Mosley is filmed romping with five hookers at a depraved NAZI-STYLE orgy in a torture dungeon. Mosley— a friend to F1 big names like Bernie Ecclestone and Lewis Hamilton— barks ORDERS in GERMAN as he lashes girls wearing mock DEATH CAMP uniforms and enjoys being whipped until he BLEEDS...
At one point the wrinkled 67-year-old—who publicly likes to give the impression he has put his father's evil legacy behind him—yells "she needs more of ze punishment!" while brandishing a LEATHER STRAP over a brunette's naked bottom.
Then the lashes rain down as Mosley counts them out in German: "Eins! Zwei! Drei! Vier! Fünf! Sechs!.."
Last month the urbane president of the FIA—Formula One's governing body—hit the headlines when he announced a crackdown on racism in the sport after McLaren ace Lewis Hamilton was abused by Spanish spectators.
But on Friday the only ‘crackdowns' married Mosley was interested in were on bare buttocks...
The 6ft 2in former barrister once helped his father try to restart his political career in the Sixties with a new fascist Union Movement party. He was even a prospective parliamentary candidate himself.
But the party that got his vote on Friday was one involving violent perversion in a rigged-up basement torture dungeon.
Certainly sounds a little worse than Leinert's frolics, from a public relations perspective, anyway. So what's the reaction in the world of Formula 1? Well, here's the initial response:
Formula One chief executive Bernie Ecclestone told at least one London newspaper that Mosley's job was not in jeopardy.
"I find it difficult to believe. It's his business but it sounds to me like a set-up. Has he in any way damaged F1? No," he told the Daily Mail.
Later Monday, the Times Online reported that sources close to Mosley said he wouldn't resign.
Ecclestone's quote is classic: I don't believe it. It's his own private business. He was set up. This has nothing to do with F1.
I think the only things he missed were the normally kiss-of-death vote of confidence and a promise of exoneration.
UPDATE - Fixed the spelling of Leinart's name in the title of the post and body so that it's consistent with the story.