Superbowl ring sparks WW3!

[Wrath Child]

Putin Pockets Patriots Ring

BY JACOB GERSHMAN - Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 28, 2005


The owner of the New England Patriots, Robert Kraft, is missing his 2005 Super Bowl ring, and the bauble appears to have been pocketed by President Putin of Russia.

That is the story that was being pieced together yesterday evening following a report in the Russian press and buzz from an e-mail. In that message, a consultant related details from a businessman who was present at a meeting last weekend between a group of American executives and the steely ex-KGB agent to talk about investment in Russia. According to the account contained in the e-mail and elaborated on to The New York Sun by several sources, Mr. Kraft made the mistake of pulling the diamond-encrusted, 14-karat, white-gold Super Bowl ring off his hand to give his host a closer look.

It was the last time, according to these sources, that the owner of the New England Patriots football team saw the ring, a gaudy piece of jewelry that could easily be sold on eBay at the cost of a small yacht and that its proud owner may not have wished to part with permanently at any price.

No one is accusing either Mr. Putin or Mr. Kraft of doing anything improper, but rather of being involved in a diamond-studded misunderstanding. While Mr. Kraft thought he was playing show-and-tell, Mr. Putin apparently assumed, in error, that Mr. Kraft, at the completion of their session with the other executives, was offering a parting gift to the leader of the world's largest country.

"He thought Putin would get a kick out of seeing it," the source said.

The source, who was not at the meeting but was told what happened by someone who was, and who asked to remain anonymous, said Mr. Kraft displayed some hesitancy before removing the ring but presented it to the Russian when encouraged by the chairman of Citigroup, Sanford Weill. Mr. Weill could not be reached for comment. The mix-up was described in a brief part of a lengthy e-mail sent by the head of a consulting group, which specializes in political risk analysis, to a blind list of recipients.

After glimpsing the bauble's flashiness, Mr. Putin is said to have placed the ring promptly in his pocket and exited the room. And Mr. Kraft, whose team has triumphed at the Super Bowl three of the past four years, was suddenly down to two rings.

Left in the highly awkward position of having to decide whether to explain the mix-up to the Kremlin, a nonplussed Mr. Kraft decided to take one for the team and kept silent - lest he stir up an international incident.

According to one source who spoke to the Sun, Mr. Kraft said he is trying to find a polite way to restore the ring to its rightful owner - himself.

Mr. Kraft, who was traveling in Europe, could not be reached for comment yesterday. His daughter-in-law, Carolyn Kraft, reached by phone, declined to provide details about the imbroglio and did not confirm whether Mr. Kraft intended to leave Moscow bare-handed.

"It's pretty amazing, huh," she said, before explaining that she didn't want to comment on the particulars.

A spokesman for the Russian Federation's embassy in Washington, Yevgeniy Khorishko, said: "I haven't heard about the situation."

One Russian publication, however, had its own take on the incident. Kommersant, which describes itself as "New Russia's First Independent Newspaper," said Mr. Kraft "shyly stuffed something into" the hand of Mr. Putin.

"Putin nodded and quickly looked around. But no, he didn't see anybody watching. Then the curiosity took hold over the president of Russia and he started to look at the present. There was a massive silver ring in his hands. Putin even carefully tried it on, but when he noticed that photo and video cameras were pointing at him, quickly took it off and held it in the fist."

"It's a Super Bowl ring," the publication quoted Mr. Kraft as saying.

"It's a very good ring."

Mr. Kraft's ring, like those distributed to his players, is set with 124 diamonds, arranged to form the team's logo and spell out the words "WORLD CHAMPIONS." At 4.06 ounces, it is the heaviest ring in Super Bowl history.

On June 12, the day Mr. Kraft presented the jewelry to players at his Brookline, Mass., home, the team announced in a press release: "These rings pack plenty of bling."

The National Football League pays for up to 150 rings for the winning team, at a price of $5,000 each. When a ring that previously belonged to a former San Francisco 49ers linebacker, Lee Woodall, was auctioned off on eBay last year, collectors bid more than $49,000 to take it home. The chairman of a Boston-based paper and packaging company, Mr. Kraft, 63, acquired the Patriots in 1994 for $170 million, which at the time was the most anyone had paid for a sports franchise. He is a former chairman of the board of trustees of Columbia University.

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[DESX]

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/

BOSTON (AP) -- New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft says he likes the way Vladimir Putin is quarterbacking Russia -- and that's why he gave him his diamond-encrusted 2005 Super Bowl ring.

Kraft was among a group of U.S. business executives who met with the Russian president Saturday at Konstantinovsky Palace near St. Petersburg. Near the end of the meeting, Kraft took off the ring and handed it to Putin. Putin tried it on, put it in his pocket and left, according to Russian news reports.

``I showed the president my most recent Super Bowl ring,'' Kraft said in a statement Wednesday. The Russian president ``was clearly taken with its uniqueness,'' Kraft said.

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``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,'' Kraft said.

According to Patriots spokesman Stacey James, the ring -- which is encrusted with 124 diamonds -- has a value of ``substantially more'' than $15,000.

Before Kraft issued his statement, reports in the U.S. media -- first by The New York Sun and then by The Boston Globe and The Associated Press -- had questioned whether the Patriots owner had intended to give the ring to Putin as a present.

A senior Kremlin official, Dmitry Peskov, told The Associated Press that Putin had given the ring to the Kremlin library where other foreign gifts are kept.

Kraft's business interests include paper and packaging companies and venture capital investments. He handed out Super Bowl rings to players and coaches at his home two weeks ago.