Pretending to Fancy an Unpopular Manager is the Route to Success

I first heard about this on The Guardian’s Football Weekly podcast, and it’s since appeared in The Times, ONTD, Unprofessional Foul, and probably plenty of other places too. But that doesn’t mean we can’t share it here as well.

Apparently unsackable French national team coach Raymond Domenech has received a bizarre tribute from French singer (and former naked film actress) Catherine Ringer (as Luka says below, Googling her name is NSFW) in the form of her tribute song “Je Kiffe Raymond”, which translates roughly as “I Fancy Raymond”.

The song (above, in French) is basically a celebration of Ray-Ray’s alleged attractiveness, and features euphorically euphemistic wordplay like “If he attacked my penalty areas I would be without defenders.” A bit like France were at Euro 2008.

This is just the latest bit of weirdness surrounding Domenech’s spell in charge of France. There’s all his astrology nonsense, the press conference proposal to Estelle Denis, the recent cray text message business. And now this.

It’s not 100% clear whether Catherine Ringer is serious or joking. My guess is that she’s taking the piss. What’s not up for debate is her marketing genius. The song is available as a free download at CatherineRinger.com in advance of her new album and according to The Times “has become a phenomenon — “downloaded more than 100,000 times on Ringer’s site and heard a further 101,000 times on other sites by users in 113 countries.”

If you’ve clicked the download link in the above paragraph or clicked play on the YouTube video above, then add another one to that total. So apparently writing a love song about an unpopular manager is the route to internet based success. Which is why I’ve got the in-house WorldCupBlog band working on two potential hit tracks: “Leonardo Lovin”” and “I’m Keen on Keane”.

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