Mr football 2008
Still undefeated: Rio - the ongoing story of one man's struggle to understand his own PR. · August: fronts the relaunch of the major anti-gang culture initiative he first backed in 2006 ("I want kids to see it's not just drug dealers who drive decent cars - trying to be a gangster isn't cool"). · November: Signs up as executive producer of new Brit gangland drugs movie Dead Man Running, starring 50 Cent (previous fillm credits: Righteous Kill, Streets of Blood). Also on Rio's PR project list last year: months after launching a new football academy in Uganda, aimed at educating and training street children living in poverty in capital city Kampala (Rio says meeting the kids was "overwheming and humbling"), signs up as the face of Kensington Luxury Heights - an exclusive luxury secure gated housing development overlooking Kampala - and buys one of the properties himself. "I'm delighted to have a home in Kensington Luxury Heights," says Rio in the sales brochure. "Come, be my neighbour in Uganda!"
Runner-up...
Running Rio close: Fergie - linked Real Madrid's record on tapping-up players to mass-murdering fascism. "What makes it so obscene is that Madrid, General Franco's club, had a history of being able to get whoever and whatever they wanted before democracy came to Spain." (Also upset about their players being tapped-up: · Bob Murray, Sunderland, 2003 : "United's behaviour over David Bellion is shabby, despicable, disrespectful and arrogant. They've broken every rule." · Mohamed Fayed, Fulham, 2004 : "I'm fed up with Sir Alex constantly unsettling my players." · Harry van Raaij , PSV, 2004: "Luring Robben like this is Ferguson's style. We've seen it before with Jaap and Ruud." · Daniel Levy, Spurs, 2008: "Ferguson's action over Berbatov is one of the worst offences by any manager ever. It's a blatant act of sheer arrogance...")
