Poor Valentino Rossi. It's not easy being one of the most talented men ever to ride a motorcycle. Seven world championships, the first man ever to win a title in all three GP classes, third all-time most successful race winner, but it's all starting to fall apart.
Last season he lost the title to Nicky Hayden because Yamaha couldn't give him a chassis that worked properly, and then when he had it within his grasp he lost his grip at the last moment, sliding across the tarmac on his arse, watching the most miraculous comeback in history ride off into the distance as a Yank stole the thunder. This season that little boy Casey, second year in the big league, the one who kept falling over last season, is out in front because Ducati built a faster bike, and stayed out in front because, against all the odds, he can win a fair fight. Even crew chief Jeremy Burgess, crew chief to Doohan before Rossi, has come out and said that Casey has all but tied it up.
And now he's wanted for tax evasion.
Not the first major-league sportsman, won't be the last. But, according to the press, it should never have happened not because he should be able to afford competent accountants but because he's cute.
A personal plea: Please, for the love of whatever god you hold holy, realise that there is a difference between looking good and being good, between skill and personality, between skill at riding a motorbike and skill at accountancy!
In what parallel universe is this statement anything but risible: "“There is a special sorrow ... in discovering that even a boy who is young, lucky, a genius in his field, the freshest and most unusual among personalities to have come out in recent years, is mixed up in the same old intolerable muck that makes this country unliveable,” a la Repubblica columnist said in a front-page editorial."
Luck, genius and minty freshness have nothing to do with the quality of your accountants, and never has and never will. I remember years ago that the English were baffled by the fact that Shane Warne, a master of the most subtle of the arts of cricket, was such as an objectionable trailor-trash yob. Hey, guess what? A delicate grip bears no relationship whatsoever to a delicate personality or, for that matter, a grip upon reality.
Ben Collins is a junkie, Jason Akermanis is a wanker, Shane Warne is a dickhead and Valentino Rossi has at the very least been given bad advice by the people trusted to look after his affairs while he spends 7 days a week concentrating on exploiting the laws of physics.
Deal with it.
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