Pushing marriage as a way to encourage stability isn’t just for President Bush anymore. Apparently, it’s also for soccer coaches. “Bulgarian soccer club Litex Lovech wants its talented striker, Ivelin Popov, to curb his wild off-field living.”
So what’s their solution? Order the 19-year-old player to get married by the end of the year. The wackiest bit? Popov has agreed to do it, saying (and I am really hoping there are either some translation or language barrier issues) that “I know I’m a very bad boy and I want to meet my 20th birthday as a married man.” Popov is planning to settle down with his current girlfriend and no longer wants to be reminded of his past. (Maybe someone should have suggested a similar strategy for Maurice Clarett?)
Sports Illustrated wants to know where the player’s union is, which is a valid question. The obvious follow up to that question, naturally, is just to snark about gold-diggers.
Still, we’d be very amused if Popov ended up marrying the Bulgarian equivalent of Anna Benson. Sometimes sports wives, such as Anna Benson, can be a handful.
(That second sentence is the caption to a picture of Benson holding a huge wad of money.)
Benson, a model, is the wife of major league baseball player Kris Benson and has been noted for her “outspoken personality”. It’s been alleged that her husband was traded to the Orioles from the Mets as a direct result of her antics, and apparently when Kris Benson returned to pitch at Shea Stadium, fans chanted “Let’s go Anna.” She’s also posed for FHM.
Wasn’t ordering a 19-year-old athlete to get married weird enough? Did SI really need to rely on trite stereotypes to make this story more appealing? I mean, OMG, some baseball player can’t control his wife! She’s running around *doing stuff* and posing in various states of undress for magazines. A handful is what you call an energetic kid. It’s not what you call an adult woman with the implication that she’s just not being managed well enough.