Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten – Hoods’ Congress

The bowels of Wembley Stadium are damp and cold. The opposite of the warm and luxurious suite where Goodell was now sitting.  It is here that Balls was waiting for an opportunity.

He watched a bit of the “game” but quickly grew bored and looked for the tunnel that Q had briefed him on.  It passed directly underneath the various luxury suites.  Balls had hoped to use the device Q had given him and that he had planted in the suite to eavesdrop on Goodell and his “bosses”, the NFL owners.

Unbeknownst to the world, several of the NFL’s most powerful and influential owners had recently arrived in London.  The Service had surmised they were headed to Wembley and Balls was sent to find out what they were up to. The red Rolls Royce had picked them up from their various hotels – for they could not be seen together.  In any case, many of them had old feuds and it was best to keep distances.

Balls had also been briefed on who the owners were and the type of people they were.  As he read the file, the revulsion nearly overwhelmed him.  Balls ran back the file in his head as he prepared to turn the device on and see for himself what these despicable men and woman were up to.

Jerry Richardson had a scowl permanently etched on his face due to his bulldog-like face. He had made his money feeding fat Americans what they craved:  greasy hamburgers and french fries. He predominantly opened franchises in poor areas where minorities lived.  This way he accomplished his two main goals: making money and racial cleansing. The fit ones he hired for his team, the Carolina Panthers.  They had been somewhat successful once, but, ironically, it was his white “quarterback” that had let the team down.  Balls disliked him greatly.

Jerry Jones had made his money in, admittedly a cliche, Texas oil. He had parlayed that money into owning the most famous and, until the Patriots rose to prominence, hated team in the NFL,  He lived the stereotypical rich Texan life of excess.  The stadium he had built, with the great assistance of local government, was his Taj Mahal and even included a lingerie store.  His womanizing traits were as legendary as his unexplicable faith in a Princeton man and his quarterback named Romo.  If they had met under different circumstances, Balls would have bought him a drink.

Dan Rooney was the progeny of Canadian Irish Catholics who had fled Ireland in the potato famine.  The family money came from saloons and gambling and, in later years, from the football team purchased with those riches.  The family downplayed that particular aspect of their history and, as if ashamed of their roots, pushed the idea of the “right” or “Steeler” way to play football and to run the organization.  Of course, it was all a lie as the steroid-fueled championships of the 70s could attest, but that success had made the team one of the most popular in the league.  Balls did not care for hypocrisy.  Be who you are and be proud of it!  This was a man not to be trusted.

John Mara was a youngish man, at least compared to the others, but no less suspicious. Like Rooney, his team, the New York Giants, had been handed down to him from his ancestors.  The only thing of note that he had accomplished in his life was being an uncle to two Hollywood “actresses”, Rooney, named after the other owner’s family,

and Katie

Neither amounted to much artistically outside of fueling desperate teenagers’ masturbatory fantasies.    Balls did not care for the whole family, their strange relationship to the Rooneys, and the similar hypocrisy of being considered “model” owners.

Robert Kraft lived up to his last name.  He had married into money and taken over his wife’s family’s business soon after the marriage began.  He leveraged and diversified with an incredible streak of good luck (or was it?) of investing in the right thing at the right time turning him into a multi-millionaire.  He bought the Boston-area NFL franchise and in 2001 most of New England finally discovered it had a franchise when Kraft’s team won its first championship.  This was a result of the injury to the team’s regular quarterback that gave rise to the backup, Mr. Brady whom Balls had met on that fateful card-playing night and helped out in Las Vegas. To top it off, not long after Kraft’s wife died, he started “dating” a young model 39 years his junior.  Masterful timing all around.  Balls knew that this was either the world’s luckiest man – not likely – or a cheater rivaling only Goodell.

Finally, the sole female member of the group,

Martha Ford was as tough as the city where her team was located, the tires her family’s company made, and the cars her husband’s family made.  The families had “arranged” for the two to meet in college and a match was made. Balls knew these types of arrangements had been common in Europe for ages, but it surprised him that America had them too.  Her college nickname had been “Stoney”, which seemed appropriate.  She had the look of a stone-cold killer.

It was this group of dubious characters that had assembled in Goodell’s suite that day.  Through the machine Q had provided, Balls could see them all sitting around a table, ignoring the game.  Goodell’s obsequious lackey, PK, was acting as secretary, making sure waters and refreshments were provided, handing out pens and paper pads, and generally looking after the owners’ needs. Finally, Goodell stood up and the side conversations subsided.

‘Gentlemen and madam, I propose to offer you partnership in an undertaking that will assuredly place in each of your treasuries, within one week, the sum of ten billion dollars.’

to be continued…