How quick-witted of Ferdinand then, instead of calling the police to report this extortion attempt involving these "fake pictures", that he got on to the News Of The World - that internationally renowned crime fighting unit. Fear not though! Apparently Rio is "happy to go public and co-operate with the police in this investigation." An investigation that is, as yet, non-existent. We await with interest the first arrests to be made in this heinous plot against our beloved Rio.
Meanwhile, in matters completely unrelated to any of the above, RI once again stumbles across the following interview with media guru Max Hastings, which United fans may or may not find interesting. From the Daily Telegraph, in August last year:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=RELZSWLUIWDRZQFIQMGSM5OAVCBQWJVC?xml=/news/2004/08/05/nmed05.xml&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=31691
'Still, it is no revelation that PRs try to stop stories appearing by offering others - or the prospect of others - instead. Such horsetrading may not be the norm in mainstream public relations but killing a story is a key service offered by the small number of "independent media brokers" (as one of them calls their trade) who try to massage press coverage of the various celebrities they represent.
'The best known of them, Clifford, says that keeping stories out of papers represents "75-80 per cent" of his business. "It's the reason people come to me, but it's the hardest part of the job."
'Clifford, whose clients have included everyone from Rebecca Loos to Antonia de Sanchez, says he has been betrayed only once - by a Sunday tabloid editor who, some years ago, published a damaging piece about one of Clifford's clients without the "courtesy" of first putting the allegations to him.
'For the next 12 months, Clifford refused to deal with the paper, with the result that it missed out on a "dozen or more front pages". "I don't threaten, I don't shout. But the reason I am sometimes - not always - able to kill off a story is because of the relationship I have with the editor. They have to wonder: do I want to have this one scoop and miss out on a dozen others."
'And he admits he frequently trades information about a client if it kills a more damaging story.
'"Lots of people I represent would be distraught if, for example, a story about them taking drugs appeared. It could stop them working in the States, and ruin their careers.
'"A sex scandal, on the other hand, could actually do them some good. So if you see a story - and I've done this - in which a massive star is involved in an orgy with two or three members of the opposite sex, the chances are it's been created to bury something worse.
'He adds: "Similarly, I've had a client who is a major star who is married and was caught with another girl. If his wife found out, it would have meant divorce.
'"So I would go to the couple and say, 'Look, the papers have got a story about you doing drugs which would be hugely damaging career-wise. Lets give them something about how you were at a wild drunken party and ended up with another woman.'
'"When the story appears, the wife is happy that it's total rubbish and that they've gone for the lesser of two evils - and the readers get a wonderful story."'
(To avoid any confusion, RI is in no way suggesting any of what is described above has any relevance to the News Of The World/Ferdinand blackmail story)