Jacksonville Jaguars mistake expensive champagne for Free Stuff!

[Lummy]

Four Jacksonville Jaguars players - named widely in the US as Barry Church, Ronnie Harrison, DJ Hayden and Jarrod Wilson - were arrested by cops at 4am on Saturday.
Trouble flared after they were accused of trying to leave the London Reign Showclub without paying their tab.

The players, who earn an average of £43,000 a week, allegedly squared up to bouncers outside the nightspot.

The Jaguars were in the capital for an NFL match against Philadelphia Eagles at Wembley Stadium on Sunday.

They lost yesterday's game 24-18 ...

... The players [drank] champagne, starting at £450 ($570) bottle, and vodka.

They were reportedly sent bottles they thought were on the house and the row started when they were asked to pay.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/759943...ghtclub-brawl/

[Lummy]

America thanks these fine, upstanding young men -- well, all the NFL really -- for showing the international community the best in American diplomacy.

And don't forget Obama. He deserves some credit.

[Safety]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/olympics...f-robbery/amp/

[Lummy]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/olympics...f-robbery/amp/

Are you trying to suggest the night club got it all wrong?

[Standing Wolf]

They were reportedly sent bottles they thought were on the house and the row started when they were asked to pay.

If they were, in fact "sent [the] bottles" and did not order them, it's entirely possible that a misunderstanding and not "fraud" (the charge brought against them by the police) was at the heart of this incident. Customs differ in foreign countries, obviously. It isn't on the same scale, of course, but I was in Germany with friends who ordered water at a restaurant, and when the bill came it turned out that they'd been served mineral water and were being charged for it. With these players, it isn't really clear whether they ever actually requested the champagne at all. Perhaps the management just assumed that, being highly paid professional athletes, they wouldn't mind paying 50K for drinks, and the players assumed that they were being hosted.

Speaking of which, I think the article focused rather unnecessarily and inappropriately on the players' salaries. It seemed to imply that they were being stingy and that, since they made so much money, they ought to have just paid any bill they were given without argument.

How much of whatever went on with the bouncers was the players' fault is really impossible to say without knowing how the bouncers handled the situation. Being bouncers, it's difficult to imagine that they were being terribly "diplomatic" themselves. It's easy for one of us to say, "Well, I'd have just remained calm and waited for the police to come" - but we don't really know how physical the bouncers were getting, and we'd be saying it while not full of alcohol at 4 in the morning in a foreign country. It may very well have seemed to the players that they were being taken advantage of, defrauded or even robbed.

[Lummy]

At $570 a cork, any rational person not totally self-absorbed would clarify that point before popping, don't you think?

Could be the writer too. Not the best.