{"id":96147,"date":"2011-05-17T16:22:36","date_gmt":"2011-05-17T11:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=96147"},"modified":"2011-05-17T16:22:36","modified_gmt":"2011-05-17T11:22:36","slug":"did-alain-boghossian-get-1-million-by-chechen-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2011\/05\/17\/did-alain-boghossian-get-1-million-by-chechen-leader.html","title":{"rendered":"Did Alain Boghossian Get $1 Million by Chechen Leader?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov gave a team of international football stars \u2014 among them Alain Boghossian \u2014\u00a0diamond-studded watches for taking part in a show game in the republic’s capital, the Sports.fr website<\/strong><\/span><\/a> said on Monday, RIA Novosti reports<\/span><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The all-star team, led by Argentina’s Diego Maradona, played local Kavkaz (Caucasus) team during the opening ceremony of the Akhmad Kadyrov Sports Complex in the Chechen capital Grozny on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Sports.fr said football stars each received diamond-studded watches ranging in value from 12,000 to 70,000 euros ($17,000-$100,000 US).<\/p>\n

The stars were also paid between 200,000 and one million euro ($285,000-$1.4 million) for taking part in the event, the website said.<\/p>\n

Boghossian, a retired player of French-Armenian descent who now assistant coaches the French national team, denied the claims, saying that he took part in the match out of charity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a private initiative, independent of the French Football Federation. Several days ago, a player called me and proposed I participate in a match in Chechnya for a humanitarian cause. I agreed to play in the match because I have Armenian roots and understand the situation in Chechnya. I took vacation days and went. For free, clearly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The site says Canal+ shows the other stars admiring Boghossian\u2019s watch, while the player himself says: \u201cAll these diamonds, guys. Me, they gave me diamonds because I played well.\u201d Later, it says, he defended himself: \u201cYes, I got a watch just before leaving, but not one knew there would be such a gift. As for me, I didn\u2019t get any money for playing,\u201d reports the Global Post<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kadyrov and presidential envoy to the North Caucasus Alexander Khloponin both played on the Kavkaz side, which won the game 5-2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I agreed to play in the match because I have Armenian roots and understand the situation in Chechnya. I took vacation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96060,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[26598,14301,17412,17726],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96147"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}