FOOTBALL

️‍🥸 Call me by your Neym

If you’re blessed with a doppelganger, you have a choice: you can use your double for wholesome means, like attending two charity functions at once or staging harmless pranks on your unsuspecting in-laws.

Or - if you’re a Brazilian superstar with a penchant for heavily NDA’d sex parties - you can use them for something more nefarious. Say, to cast doubts about your attendance at a debauched orgy with your old man.

Hours after Neymar attended Rio Carnival last week, his helicopter was spotted landing at a ranch outside Sao Paulo, where witnesses saw his dad shepherding in a bus full of escorts.

Several guests reported dancing with Neymar at the bash, and one woman claims to have slept with him, but the footballer’s camp deny he was there.

Neymar claims he “lent the helicopter to a friend”, and fortunately he has the perfect explanation for his sightings at the party.

As the scandal erupted, lookalike Eigon Oliveira popped up with a video of himself on the chopper, asserting it was actually him at the do.

The grubby hacks at Upshot Towers can’t decide on this one, so we refer to you, our loyal readers:

FOOTBALL

🕵️ Ron her Majesty’s secret service

We always assumed those moronic YouTube accounts with names like CR7_GOAT and T3amCr1stiano were the work of Prime-swigging tweenagers with nothing better to do.

But scratch beneath the surface, and you’ll find they’re run by highly-trained deep state operatives and the Kremlin’s foreign intelligence director Sergei Naryshkin.

That’s according to the BBC's former security correspondent, who claims Putin’s spies once used Cristiano Ronaldo YouTube videos to send coded messages back to Moscow.

Describing a couple who were jailed for Russian espionage in Germany, he said:

No word on whether @Messi_f00tballGOD is actually a Mossad agent.

CRICKET

❄️ Green around the Gills

Australia was stunned when cricket legend Stuart MacGill emerged battered and bruised from a terrifying kidnapping ordeal back in 2021.

The former spinner was abducted at gunpoint in Sydney by three masked men, who bundled him into the back of a car and drove him to a remote property, before stripping him, beating him and threatening to cut off his fingers.

And there was another shocking development when his own brother-in-law was arrested for the kidnapping.

But it turns out Stu miiiiight have had it coming…

He was found guilty of helping to supply cocaine this week, after setting up a meeting between his dealer and his partner's brother, Marino Sotiropoulos - a big fish in the Sydney coke game.

The pair arranged a $330,000 drug deal, where the dealer gave Marino’s associates a vacuum-sealed bag of A4 paper with a few $50 notes on the outside.

Which doesn’t tend to go down too well with violent cokeheads…

FOOTBALL

🚨 Fash ‘n’ police

If, during his heyday as a sadistic Wimbledon striker, you’d told us John Fashanu would one day be arrested for “criminal conspiracy, threat to life, intimidation and trespass,” we’d have said “yep, sounds about right.”

And it finally happened back in December, when Fash was detained by Nigerian police following a dispute with a group of investors trying to buy his land.

John, his wife and his lawyer were all arrested when they confronted a group of workmen who’d been sent to build a fence around the plot.

To be fair it sounds like a bit of a stitch up, and John is now suing the police for £100,000 for wrongful arrest, claiming they’ve ruined his chances of getting the Nigerian national team job.

Considering his last managerial role was leading Fash FC - a Sunday league team set up for a 2003 reality tv show - we probably wouldn’t have pinned the Super Eagles’ AFCON hopes on him anyway…

FOOTBALL

🇧🇩 Howdy Choudhury

Thousands turned out to give Hamza Choudhury a hero’s welcome to Bangladesh this week, after the on-loan Sheffield United midfielder switched allegiance to the country last year.

Beats frosty away days at The Den.

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AND FINALLY…

🚬 Miami vice

Francisco Comesana enjoys a quick ciggy at the Miami Open after winning the first set against Michael Mmoh.