London Arsenal has not shown good results for a long time. However, the club has a large number of VIP fans. The Gunners, The Rolling Stones leader Mick Jagger, ex-Bond Pierce Brosnan, rapper Jay-Z and Queen II. Supported by Elizabeth.
But there was one fan in Arsenal’s history that the club was not at all proud of. This is Osama bin Laden, former number one terrorist, founder of Al Qaeda. Among other things, bin Laden took part in the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York. Osama was eliminated by the US military during a special operation in Pakistan in May 2011.
Bin Laden was also a football fan. Osama’s childhood friend, Halid Batarfi, said, “We used to get together and play football in the early hours of the summer after the mosque.” Due to his high growth, he constantly played in the attack, where, according to eyewitnesses, he always won riding balls.
It is unclear exactly when Bin Laden began rooting for Arsenal. According to one version, this happened in the early 90s, when the son of a Saudi Arabian boss lived for some time in London. In the spring of 1994, Osama was said to have visited Highbury during Arsenal’s home games against Torino and Paris Saint-Germain in the Cup Winners’ Cup quarter-finals and semi-finals.
And impressed by the Gunners’ play, he bought a copy of Arsenal’s former striker Ian Wright’s T-shirt for his son.
This information was made public in late 2001, when Bin Laden was officially the world’s most wanted criminal and the reward for information on his whereabouts was US$25 million. The leadership of Arsenal immediately dismissed their “fans” after such news.
“We saw this information in the newspapers. Obviously, he will no longer be welcome at Highbury, which is Arsenal’s official position.
Still, fans tried to find something positive in the terrorist’s sympathy for their favorite club.
“I hope North London is much less likely to be his target now,” wrote Arseweb, one of Arsenal’s leading fan sites.
Fans of other teams began trolling the Gunners with news that Bin Laden was hiding in the Arsenal trophy cabinet, implying that Londoners do not indulge their fans with titles that often.
Also, the link between bin Laden and Arsenal has resulted in flags featuring the club’s symbols and the inscription “Al Qaeda”* available for purchase.
Osama used football not only to express emotions but also in his professional activities. He was said to have used the number one game to join al-Qaeda*. So he knew if a novice could be a team player or not. Also, football matches were an integral part of the “team building” of the organization.
Meanwhile, bin Laden entered British stadiums. True, this happened after his death. When the English Premier League returned in 2020 after a fake curfew, teams played to empty stands for a long time. And Leeds management decided to fill the stands with cardboard copies of their fans. Among the photographs sent to the club was Osama.
The club later apologized for the incident and promised to take the verification of all submitted photos more seriously in the future.
* – a terrorist organization banned on the territory of the Russian Federation.
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