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Best Story of the Weekend (Kraft's Ring Stolen by Putin - Merged)

unbanmadmike1

By unbanmadmike1
in NY Jets Forum

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unbanmadmike1

unbanmadmike1

Posted
Posted

http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/kraft_putin_stole_bowl_ring_qtB16b5PI0jipYT6tQxUGO?utm_source=SFnewyorkpost&utm_medium=SFnewyorkpost

 

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft revealed the real story behind a 2005 meeting with Vladimir Putin, during which the Russian president pocketed his Super Bowl ring, worth more than $25,000. Kraft, at the time, claimed the diamond-encrusted bauble was a gift, but he now admits Putin stole it, and the White House intervened when he demanded it back.

Kraft explained the incident happened while Sandy Weill and other business execs were in St. Petersburg. “I took out the ring and showed it to [Putin], and he put it on and he goes, ‘I can kill someone with this ring,’ ” Kraft told the crowd at Carnegie Hall’s Medal of Excellence gala at the Waldorf-Astoria.“I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out.”

vladimir_putin--300x300.jpg
AFP/Getty Images
Vladimir Putin
 

Kraft released a statement at the time, “President Putin, a great and knowledgable sports fan, was clearly taken with its uniqueness. I decided to give him the ring as a symbol of the respect and admiration that I have for the Russian people and [his] leadership.

But Kraft really wanted the 4.94-carat bauble back, he said Thursday, admitting he’d gotten a call from theGeorge W. Bush-run White House, saying, “‘It wouldreally be in the best interest of US-Soviet relations if you meant to give the ring as a present.” (In fact the Soviet Union had collapsed 14 years earlier.)

But, Kraft said, “I really didn’t [want to]. I had an emotional tie to the ring, it has my name on it. I don’t want to see it on eBay. There was a pause on the other end of the line, and the voice repeated, ‘It wouldreally be in the best interest if you meant to give the ring as a present.’ ” The ring is now reportedly kept in the Kremlin library.

Also attending the event were Andre Tippett, Vince Wilfork, Jerod Mayo and Tom Brady, who told us ofTim Tebow joining the Patriots, “I think the more great players we have the better it’s going to be for our team. I hope it turns out well because I’ve had a quite a lot of new guys . . . we’ll see,

 

 

LMAO.

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Blackout

Blackout

Posted
Posted

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/robert-kraft-vladimir-putin-stole-super-bowl-ring-130732690.html

 

 

The Super Bowl ring is one of the greatest symbols of athletic triumph. NFL players have been known to break down when they can finally fit that particular bit of jewelry on their fingers, and I've met enough former players, coaches, and executives who would never be separated from their rings to know that the buzz lasts forever. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft has three such rings from his team's wins in Super Bowls XXXVI, XXXVIII, and XXXIX. The ring Kraft won for that last Super Bowl, at the end of the 2004 season, went missing in a very unusual way.

As the story goes, Kraft met Russian President Vladimir Putin at a gathering of business and political leaders at Konstantinovsky Palace near St. Petersburg, Russia, in June of 2005. Kraft and Putin talked a while, Kraft took off his ring to show it to Putin, and Putin promptly put the ring in his pocket and walked off.

"I showed the president my most recent Super Bowl ring,” Kraft said in a subsequent statement. Putin “was clearly taken with its uniqueness."

“At that point, I decided to give him the ring as a symbol of the respect and admiration that I have for the Russian people and the leadership of President Putin."

But as Kraft said recently, per the New York Post, that's not what really happened.

“I took out the ring and showed it to [Putin], and he put it on and he goes, ‘I can kill someone with this ring,’” Kraft said during the Carnegie Hall’s Medal of Excellence gala in New York City.“I put my hand out, and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out.”

Were it not for the intervention of the White House, this could have gotten ugly. Kraft wanted his ring back, obviously not intimidated by Putin's alleged ability to kill somebody with it. The ring came in at 4.94 carats and was worth over $25,000, and Kraft was not amused. He said that he got a call from the George W. Bush-led White House, telling him that it would really be in the best interests of relations between the two countries if Kraft would change the story and say the ring was a gift.

Kraft was unmoved.

“I really didn’t [want to]. I had an emotional tie to the ring, it has my name on it. I don’t want to see it on eBay. There was a pause on the other end of the line, and the voice repeated, ‘It would 
really
 
be in the best interest if you meant to give the ring as a present.’”

According to the Post, the ring is now kept in the Kremlin library -- presumably in the "Ill-Gotten Booty" section.

 

 

kraftputin.jpgkraftputin.jpg

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JetNation

JetNation

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Posted

Most Jets fans find it easy to root against the Patriots.  How easy is it to root against them?  The answer depends if you can root for Russia over the Pats.  No, I am not talking about Ivan Drago and Rocky IV here, I am talking about Vladimir Putin.  Yahoo Sports has an update on what actually happened in 2005 when Kraft met Putin.  It had previously been reported that Kraft gave his Super Bowl ring to Putin as a gift.

As the story goes, Kraft met Russian President Vladimir Putin at a gathering of business and political leaders at Konstantinovsky Palace near St. Petersburg, Russia, in June of 2005. Kraft and Putin talked a while, Kraft took off his ring to show it to Putin, and Putin promptly put the ring in his pocket and walked off.

“I showed the president my most recent Super Bowl ring,” Kraft said in a subsequent statement. Putin “was clearly taken with its uniqueness.”

“At that point, I decided to give him the ring as a symbol of the respect and admiration that I have for the Russian people and the leadership of President Putin.”

But as Kraft said recently, per the New York Post, that’s not what
really
happened.

“I took out the ring and showed it to [Putin], and he put it on and he goes, ‘I can kill someone with this ring,’” Kraft said during the Carnegie Hall’s Medal of Excellence gala in New York City.“I put my hand out, and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out.”

The NY Post says that Kraft wanted the ring back, but was told that wasn’t the best idea.

But Kraft really wanted the 4.94-carat bauble back, he said Thursday, admitting he’d gotten a call from the George W. Bush-run White House, saying, “‘It would
really
be in the best interest of US-Soviet relations if you meant to give the ring as a present.”

The question remains Jets fans, how easy is it to root against the Patriots?  Other Jets fans are sounding off in our NY Jets message board.

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joewillie2013

joewillie2013

Posted
Posted

joewillie2013, on 13 Jun 2013 - 17:46, said:

    http://www.nysun.com/foreign/putin-pockets-patriots-ring/16172/

    Kraft is a scumbag, he let this autocrat , commie bitch him and steal his ring

    I posted this story a few days ago on Jet nation -- :winking0001:  your welcome for my idea---Otherwise where are the few trolls who said it was trivial ?? :winking0001:

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SayNoToDMC

SayNoToDMC

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Posted

LONDON (Reuters) - Vladimir Putin's opponents often brand him a "thief" at street protests. Now the Kremlin is dismissing an American football team owner's account of how the Russian president ended up with his diamond-encrusted Super Bowl ring when they met eight years ago.


According to the New York Post, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft
told the audience at a recent awards ceremony that he had intended only
to show Putin the ring, worth more than $25,000, but that Putin had
pocketed it.

 

Putin's spokesman said that Kraft clearly meant the ring - around 70
of which are given to the winning team in the annual American football
championship - to be a gift, and suggested Kraft should see a
psychoanalyst.

 

"I was standing right behind the president, and I saw how he was given the ring," spokesman Dmitry Peskov
told reporters on Sunday in London, where Putin met British Prime
Minister David Cameron on the eve of a G8 summit in Northern Ireland.


Kraft met Putin in St Petersburg in 2005, after the Patriots beat the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl that February. In a statement at the time, he reportedly said he had decided to give Putin the ring as a gesture of goodwill.


But according to the Post, Kraft told the audience at an awards
ceremony in New York that, after he had shown the ring to Putin and
Putin put it on, "I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and
three KGB guys got around him and walked out".


He said he had wanted the ring back but that the White House, then
under President George W. Bush, had told him it would be better for
relations with Moscow if he treated it as a gift, the newspaper reported
on a society page.


"These words about how someone put pressure on him and so forth - I
think this is an issue for a detailed discussion with psychoanalysts,"
Peskov said.

 

Peskov said Putin was prepared to buy a ring and give it to Kraft, but he said nothing about returning the Super Bowl ring.

 

"This gentleman is experiencing such agonising pain from the loss
that occurred in connection with an act of trust in 2005," Peskov said.


"The president will be ready to send him as a gift some other ring, which he can buy with his own money."

 

 

 

 

Lol, and now Kraft is backing off. Putin FTW

 

vlad-putin.jpg

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kelticwizard

kelticwizard

Posted
Posted

LONDON (Reuters) -.....

"I was standing right behind the president, and I saw how he was given the ring," spokesman Dmitry Peskov

told reporters on Sunday in London......

 

......"These words about how someone put pressure on him and so forth - I

think this is an issue for a detailed discussion with psychoanalysts,"

Peskov said.

 

 

And if Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov instead says something like, "Yeah, he'll do that sometimes", he gets a scheduled meeting with KGB specialists for some "behavior modification".

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FloridaJetsFan

FloridaJetsFan

Posted
Posted

Must take after his coach ...

Russian president: I did not steal Super Bowl ring By Alla Eshchenko and Faith Karimi, CNN

updated 7:59 AM EDT, Mon June 17, 2013

Moscow (CNN) -- Russia's president is fighting back: No, he did not steal a Super Bowl ring. And no, he's not rocking the diamond-encrusted prize on his finger, either.

President Vladimir Putin's spokesman denied that the leader kept a Super Bowl ring that New England Patriots' owner Robert Kraft wanted back.

Both sides agree that the ring, with its 124 diamonds, changed hands during Kraft's visit to St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2005.

The New York Post reported on remarks made by Kraft, 72, at a New York awards gala Thursday.

"I took out the ring and showed it to (Putin). And he put it on and he goes, 'I can kill someone with this ring,'" Kraft said, according to the New York Post. "I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out."

In the quotes used by the Post, Kraft did not specifically say that Putin stole the ring; the paper characterized his remarks that way in the headline and story. Kraft did say, however, that he had wanted the ring back. "I had an emotional tie to the ring. It has my name on it."

The Patriots' owner said he then received a call from the White House at the time telling him it would be in the best interest of U.S.-Russian relations to claim it was a gift to Putin, the Post reported. Kraft said Thursday he played along.

A few days after the 2005 incident, amid confusion as to whether the ring was a present or was kept by mistake, Kraft issued a statement saying it was a gift.

That's the way Putin sees it, the president's spokesman said Sunday.

"What Mr. Kraft is saying now is weird," Dmitry Peskov said. "I was standing 20 centimeters away from him and Mr. Putin and saw and heard how Mr. Kraft gave this ring as a gift."

The 4.94-carat ring is in the Kremlin's library, where all official state gifts are kept, he said. It is worth more than $25,000, according to multiple reports from 2005.

A Kraft spokesman said Sunday the story is a humorous anecdote that Kraft "retells for laughs."

"He loves that the ring is at the Kremlin and, as he stated back in 2005, he continues to have great respect for Russia and the leadership of President Putin," said Stacey James, a spokesman for The Kraft Group.

"An added benefit from the attention this story gathered eight years ago was the creation of some Patriots fan clubs in Russia," he said.

There is some solace for Kraft, as he also received rings for the Patriots' Super Bowl victories in the 2001 and 2003 seasons.

Super Bowl rings can fetch much more when they are auctioned, depending on who wore them. The 1991 Super Bowl ring of Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor sold last year at auction for more than $230,000. There were rumors Charlie Sheen bought the ring, but the actor denied it.

At least one ring has been used to raise money for charity. In 2008, former Patriots defensive player Je'Rod Cherry raffled off one of his three rings to raise $150,000 for several children's charities.

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