A little Fulham himself

A little Fulham himself

Mohammed Al Fayed buys Fulham a £100,000, 2.3-meter statue of Michael Jackson that isn’t getting quite the reception the King of Pop would have wanted.

April 6, 2011 1:54 by shafeer

Kipp’s down with the flu: might be the change of weather, the multiple pathogens undoubtedly in the air what with the oncoming sandstorm or might just be that guy in the corner of our work place who jokes about being a regular mucus producing machine as he sneezes every three seconds. Either way, we aren’t in the best of spirits, which is why when we burst out laughing at this article, we knew we had found ourselves a keeper alright.

According to the National, Mohammed Al Fayed, the billionaire Egyptian owner of Fulham, recently unveiled a £100,000 2.3-meter statue of Michael Jackson outside the ground of the English Premier League football side.

Not only is the statue rather aesthetically unpleasant (a quick Guardian online poll found 70 percent of their readers considered the new Jacko tribute “Britain’s ugliest statue”) but more importantly it is just down right out of place. Wacko Jacko isn’t exactly the mascot of all things football related now, is he?

But what really takes the cake on this one, are the remarks Egyptian owner Fulham Al Fayed fired back at the criticism: “Why is it bizarre? Football fans love it. If some stupid fans don’t understand and appreciate such a gift, they can go to hell…I don’t want them to be fans. If they don’t understand and don’t believe in things I believe in, they can go to Chelsea…They can go to anywhere else.”

Wait, hold up, Kipp spoke too soon: this is actually our favourite quote from Al Fayed: “People will queue to come and visit it from all over the UK and it is something that I and everybody else should be proud of.”

Now, laugh as we all may, does this particular situation epitomise the unbridgeable cultural gap between Middle Eastern millionaires and their vanity purchases of the West? Or then again, is it just a case of eccentric taste of a particularly rich man, much like Jacko himself?