There are times when I feel sorry for Peter Kenyon. Now, there’s a sentence I never expected to write. Ever since destiny placed him in charge of Roman’s toy shop, the Chelsea chief executive has appeared to live a charmed life with his high salary, soaring profile and licence to spend vast amounts of his employer’s small change. Sadly, in exchange for those blessings, Kenyon has paid the price of his privacy. No matter where he turns, he finds famous football faces. He can’t escape them.
Just a few days ago hewas enjoying an evening in his favourite Italian restaurant when in walked Rio Ferdinand. As a Chelsea spokesman later assured us, it was ‘a chance encounter’. A few hours later he strolled into his favourite Greek restaurant, only to find Ferdinand had moved on to the very same establishment! Now, honestly, what are the odds against that! It was all perfectly innocent and, lest you harbour unworthy suspicions, let me refer you to that same Chelsea spokesman: ‘Anybody who alleges that we are tapping up Rio Ferdinand will be subject to quite a very strong legal action.’ Quite. I mean, a city as small as London, people are bumping into each other all the time. And it was a restaurant, for God’s sake! To quote the Chelsea spokesman, it would be ‘franldy ludicrous to hold any sort of meeting in a place like that’. How true. Although you may be sure that carping cynics
will recall that January afternoon when Kenyon and his chum, Jose Mourinho, found themselves in the same room as the celebrated Arsenal defender Ashle3 Cole. The room in question was the Green ~Room of the Royal Park Hotel In West London.
Any suggestion of impropriety is frankly ludicrous. It was Just another of those accidents that happen to Pete. Like the one in March 2004, when he opened the door of his London apartment and, you wouldn’t believe this, Siren Goran Eriksson walked right in!
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