Weekly Wrap Up: Monkeygate

“Roy Hodgson is a man of the highest integrity”; were the words the FA Chairman Greg Dyke used to describe the England Manager in the wake of Monkeygate where Roy during his half time team talk at Wembley on Tuesday against Poland rather naively referred to Tottenham’s mixed race winger Andros Townsend as a monkey! It was not only the FA head to rally behind Hodgson, but a number of England players took to Twitter to defend Hodgson, including Townsend, the ‘victim’ in all of this.

Wayne Rooney defending Hodgson

A very quick bit of background for the non-football fans out there; at half time, during Tuesday night’s must win World Cup Qualifier against Poland, Roy Hodgson referred to an old Nasa joke about a monkey and an astronaut whereby Andros Townsend was the monkey, and right back Chris Smalling was meant to be ‘feeding him’ i.e. give Towsend more of the ball.

By all accounts Hodgson apologised during half time, and as far as the England squad was concerned, it was case closed and England went on to beat Poland 2-0 and qualify for Brazil 2014.

So how was the Sun able to run a front page story the next day about this joke which did not even cause offence? Simple, an England squad member whose identity is not known (and it is now being rumoured as two members) leaked the story to the tabloid. A PR disaster for the FA? When the country should be celebrating qualifying for the World Cup and the apparent £100 million participation in a World Cup brings to our economy, instead the talk has been about Roy’s gaffe.

The FA and England team should have enough team spirit and internal openness that this should not have been leaked causing a PR problem. This is important for any organisation, but particularly for one like the FA where there is so much public scrutiny owing to the Luis Suarez and John Terry incidents. Companies need to ensure any grievances are addressed internally to avoid a dissatisfied member going public.

The amount of support levelled at Hodgson from players and chiefs are the right action to take to support in this case a CEO in the limelight for the wrong reasons.

Let’s now forget about Roy’s naive joke and concentrate on the World Cup and how England’s participation can aide Britain’s economic recovery.



Another busy week for Abchaps: we entertained Locke Lord over a creds swap, including their Oil and Gas experts and a Cards and Payments guru! We also hosted a Market Lunch where positivity on IPOs was heavily reinforced by all our guests.

We also attended events including Rushlight Events Fracking economic vs environmental debate, Shares Investor Mining and Gold Evening, Cleantech Investor’s Automotive Cleantech Breakfast. Farrer Dinner, Grouse & Grape Lunch at Dartmouth House, Thomson Reuters AIM nomads networking forum and an PR focus group hosted by Farrer & Co.



Oriel Securities secured an excellent acquisition this week with the appointment of Kenneth Rumph. An environmental financial analyst, he specialises in energy and resource efficiency. With previous experience at Nomura and Merrill Lynch, he brings with him a wealth of knowledge and enormous skill.

Meanwhile, Edison appointed equities analyst Angus McPhail from Investec to their oil and gas team, to specialise in mid-cap explorations companies, whilst Taylor Wessing hired partner Matthew Jones (most recently at Nabarro) in its construction and engineering group. BDO also appointed Stuart Deacon from Ernst & Young as restructuring M&A partner in its business restructuring team.



'Xenophobia' - the irrational fear of that which is perceived to be foreign or of another culture. #Monkeygate #ChinaFactor



Frieze, the biggest contemporary art event of the year, is back in London for its 11th year. 152 of the world’s leading contemporary galleries from 30 different counties will be gathering in Regent’s Park this weekend. In addition to viewing and purchasing art, visitors will be able to experience projects, talks, debates and discussions by key arts aficionados.

Head North London direction for the Bloomsbury Festival 2013. Running for six days from 15 – 20 October, over 200 free events will showcase an extraordinary line up of the world’s most influential thinkers through an eclectic programme of pioneering art, music, dance and literature.

Celebrate the closure of National Chocolate week at ‘Bea’s of Bloomsbury’s’ Evening of ‘Chocolat’. Bea’s has teamed up with master chocolatiers Valrhona for an interactive movie night: following on-screen cues when the character tucks in, taste the five chocolates of the films. Additional treats of chocolate chilli and chocolate popcorn will also be available!

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