Moles Not Allowed to Shop at Harrods

Only applies to Ukrainian football clubs.

Fulham play their Europa League tie against Shakhtar Donetsk today, and it appears that the Ukrainian club have a little more motivation to earn the victory after some shenanigans on Tuesday. According to news reports, the Moles attempted to visit Harrods in Knightsbridge after training to do a little shopping for their family. After all, Ukrainian club sides rarely get the chance to visit London.

However, they may have failed to realize that Harrods is owned by Mohamed Al-Fayed, who’s also the owner of Fulham FC. Their mistake was made clear when they were denied entry to the store, with staff claiming that their group was “too large and suspicious.”

A spokesperson for the store noted that “There are periods, when the store is at its busiest, that Harrods has to take the difficult decision to deny access to tour parties and larger groups of visitors. This is done in the interest of health and safety.” To be fair, I’m not sure what I would think if I saw a large group of Brazilians (inexplicably, the club has 8 on their roster) and Ukrainians enter a store en masse. However, the fact that they were all dressed alike in tracksuits with a club logo on them might have clued me in to the fact that they weren’t a typical tour group (people take tours of Harrods, apparently) or punters looking to make a minimal purchase.

I like to imagine that the Donetsk players were in Harrods to shop from the “See by Chloe” collection for their WAGS (because footballers have terrible taste, you see), and to purchase this for themselves (every footballer needs a puffy jacket – just ask Cesc!). Or maybe they were there to put in a bid for this 50 year-old bottle of Glenfiddich.

Regardless of their reasons, the Donetsk players went to a different store to spend their hard-earned dollars after being denied entry to Harrods. I’m sure that Al-Fayed will really rue missing out on that money, especially if Donetsk get their revenge on the pitch, denying Fulham further Europa League cash-flow.