West Bum striker Tony Phuckah is pictured brazenly buying books from a bookshop close to his home only hours after playing in his side’s win against Wigan last weekend.
Just three days later – as the team was in training for today’s crunch clash against Liverpool – his fiancée took delivery of MORE books at the same bookshop close to Phuckah’s home again.
Last night when we confronted the 26-year-old with our damning evidence he sneered: “Yeah, so?” and claimed it was for a friend. He added: “It wasn’t for me. I’m not at all interested in the progression and development of linear perspective in painting methodology of 15th century Florentine painters. Neither am I at all interested in the intellectual pursuits of luminaries such as Leonardo Da Vinci or Michaelangelo.”
But as the seriousness of what he had done sank in, he gulped: “I am f*cked.”
Our revelations will infuriate many soccer players who would never be seen reading a book let alone one about the Renaissance. And they will shock football chiefs desperate to keep literature out of the game.
“We can’t have players reading books! This has shocked the whole team who were out last night at some sleazy chav club picking up slappers to roast whilst whacked out on cocaine and MDMA. I think this guy should be suspended and fined for putting the game into disrepute.”
Astonishingly, £18,000-a-week goal ace Phuckah had a quiet evening in with his fiancée reading books and discussing philosophical concepts.
Shortly after he arrived back at his £500,000 home, he was seen carrying about 12 books into the house.
“Brazen”
The book shop dealer later told us: “Even we couldn’t believe how brazen he was just walking out into the street in daylight with the books. We would expect him to be more discreet. A lot of footballers live in the area and he is well known.”
Then on Tuesday it was the turn of Phuckah’s dark-haired girlfriend Wag Slaginova to emerge from the house in a quiet surburban road and pick up another stash of books.
Like the soccer star lover she has dated for several years, Wag – in her mid-20s – has become interested in literature and is exploring the works of Nietzsche, Sartre, Russell and Hegel.
“£420 for a first edition and £200 for the second edition”
Last night he told our reporter: “I can’t believe I have been exposed like this. Everyone knows that footballers don’t read. My career is ruined.”
His girlfriend insisted: “Phuckah is not like that. I understand how someone can believe he bought the books for himself. But he didn’t.”
A source told us last night: “What he did is madness. He has alienated every footballer in the land. He should be out in the nightclubs causing f*cking mayhem, snorting coke, sleeping with as many young girls as possible, causing fights and crashing his £450,000 Aston Martin into trees. He might as well forget about coming back to the team after this reading and staying at home scandal.”
“He has shamed the game. There is no place for such behaviour. He has let the fans down who pay good money to watch him every week.”
Later last night Phuckah’s agent made frantic calls to try and stop the story from running.
“Addict”
Eliot Moshe, of Soccer Invest, said: “You and I know the damage this can do the player’s career is phenomenal. It will kill it in England. This could cost him seven figures. It is going to cost him pretty much his career.”
“I am absolutely shocked that he has been stupid enough to get involved in this. He is completely screwing his life. I don’t expect it from a professional footballer. I know how serious this is.”
Soccer authorities – along with other sports governing bodies – have introduced new measures to clamp down on the use of damaging cultural literature
In November 1994, former Arsenal ace Paul Merson put his career on the line when he admitted to being a Carl Jung and Schopenhauer addict.
The Football Association arranged for a rehabilitation programme and he returned to the Arsenal team in February 1995
Phuckah’s exposure adds to a week of shame for football with Spurs and England defender Anul Piles spending a night in the British Library after allegedly becoming addicted to the works of Søren Aabye Kierkegaard.
West Bum refused to comment on Phuckah last night until the club has held an internal inquiry.
