An update on Placenta-gate

In an update to Placenta-gate, it turns out that Mariana Kovacevic, the physiotherapist who's injecting bits of horse placenta into van Persie's ankle, is on the run from Serbian police and is wanted for tax-evasion. 

She has at least three aliases and as many as four different addresses in Belgrade. She constantly changes her style of dressing and her hair colour to avoid detection. If anyone sees her, they should be warned that she's armed, dangerous and liable to inject you with a syringe full of horse placenta if you confront her.  

As the Daily Mail reports:

"In a case which is developing the sinister trappings of an underworld operation, Kovacoevic has disappeared without a trace. The players she is currently treating are also being kept hidden form view by a bewildering combination of subterfuge, private jets, fast cars and eagle-eyed surveillance."

Kovacevic is currently treating Robin van Persie, Glen Johnson, Fabio Aurelio and Frank Lampard. It's really quite exciting to imagine her stashing those players in various safe-houses across the city. I've been to Belgrade, and the city's a collection of Stalinist shtick with a Blade-runner sensibility. It's the perfection environment to imagine Spy-vs-Spy escapades involving highly-paid footballers, shady placenta-injecting physiotherapists and the Serbian police. 

I can just see van Persie and Lampard holed up in a battered shanty on the banks of the Sava River. Police have surrounded the house and are approaching with guns drawn. Suddenly, there's the sound of thunder, and a vintage 1950s Aston Martin bursts through the flimsy wooden wall. Lampard's in the driver's seat and he's gunning it, while van Persie's standing on the back seat firing an Uzi at the police, who cower under their cars as they become riddled with bullets. 

I just hope van Persie takes care as they're speeding off in the Aston Martin with a clutch of police cars in hot pursuit. And when Lampard crashes into a fire hydrant and van Persie's thrown into a shop window from to the impact, I hope he avoids hitting anything too hard. And when van Persie's running over the roof-tops of Belgrade with the portly police commissioner in hot pursuit, I hope he remembers to look down and not twist his other ankle. 

The last thing we need is for him to be out for another couple of months.