The Bogota Bracelet scandal engulfs England
Bobby Moore, he of the good looks and golden locks, the only English captain to lift the World Cup. Yet on Monday, May 18, soon after the squad took up residence in the luxury El Tequendama hotel, Bobby Moore was accused of stealing an expensive bracelet and was taken into custody by armed police.
That’s right, your eyes do not deceive you. The captain of England and West Ham United was alleged to have been a common thief.
It is, of course, a nonsensical charge, but it was plenty serious at the time. Moore and his friend and fellow 1966 World Cup winner Bobby Charlton had gone to the jewellery shop in the foyer of the hotel where the Manchester United legend was wanting to buy a ring or some other souvenir for his wife.
They left without buying anything from the Fuego Verde gift shop, but sales assistant Clara Padilla followed them and loudly accused Moore of stealing a bracelet priced at £625.
Both Moore and Charlton immediately offered to be searched, but the offer was refused as the police had been called. As is the custom in Colombia they arrived with weapons ready for use and England manager Alf Ramsey suddenly realised the seriousness of the situation.
Speaking on condition of anonymity – they have been sworn to secrecy, too – one of the England players told me what happened next: “It was like a scene from a movie. Suddenly the foyer was full of police, guns out of the holster.. “It was scary – I had never seen guns being pointed at us before. When Alf came charging over to try and sort it out, they were pointing guns at him as well.
“The whole episode just seems surreal. Here was the captain of England being accused of stealing a bracelet when he could afford to buy the whole shop himself. It didn’t make sense from the start.”
There will be more on this story in the days to come.
AS the world now knows, when England stooped off at Bogotá on their way back to Mexico after beating Ecuador 2-0 in their final warm-up friendly, Moore was arrested and formally charged with the theft. Ramsey and the squad flew back to Mexico without their talismanic captain.
He was allowed to go into house arrest at the home of Alfonso Senior, the Director of the Colombian Football Federation and after intervention by the Foreign Office and perhaps Prime Minister Harold Wilson himself, Moore went before a judge on May 28 who decided to throw out the prosecution for lack of evidence – the shop assistant said Moore had put the bracelet in his left pocket when there was no such pocket.
Sources close to Alf Ramsey say the whole thing was a putup job to discomfit the world champions. If so it did not affect Moore who looked as cool as a cucumber when he arrived here at the Estadio Jalisco in Guadalara where England will shortly kick off their World Cup campaign against Romania.
2007 AC Milan won the Champions League, beating Liverpool 2-1 in the final in Athens.
2012 QPR midfielder Joey Barton was banned for 12 matches and fined £75,000 following his dismissal against Manchester City on the final
day of the Premier League season.
2015 James DeGale won the IBF super-middleweight title against Andre Dirrell, becoming Great Britain’s first boxing Olympic champion to win a world title.
2017 Sam Allardyce
announced in a statement he had stepped down as Crystal Palace manager, adding
“I have no ambitions to take another job”.
2018 Arsenal announced Unai Emery as their new head coach on a three-year contract.