…if the second meeting was so innocent, why not admit to it when details of the first one emerged?
"There were hundreds of people around, we weren't hiding anything. Rio was having photos with people and signing autographs for about 20 minutes," said Zahavi. "We made an innocent mistake, there's no doubt, but it has become crazy.
"It was nothing to do with football but if we had known the fuss it would cause we would not have bothered."
And more from the Independent:
"There was no secret meeting. Rio just came along to see me. They say there was a second secret meeting - but it was on the same night. I was just at a restaurant that belongs to a friend and I was there with the Israeli ambassador.
"Peter Kenyon had no motive. He is innocent. It is a joke. If we wanted to do a secret meeting between Rio and Chelsea then I could have done that. I could find 10 million other ways. I could arrange that clubs bid for him.”
Yeah, and the secret meeting you arranged for Ashley Cole went without a hitch didn’t it Pini?