I’m an ex-Premier League star who was accused of kidnapping a PENGUIN – now English clubs want me as their transfer guru
EX-PREMIER LEAGUE ace Lutz Pfannenstiel has been targeted by West Ham and his former club Nottingham Forest as their next sporting director.
Pfannenstiel had a short stint in the Prem having played for Wimbledon and of course Forest during a globetrotting career that saw him working in every single continent – even Antarctica.
The German is now enjoying plenty of success in the US as the sporting director of St Louis City SC with his work leading the MLS club to the top of the the Western Conference table.
According to Bild, West Ham and Nottingham are keeping tabs but will have to work hard to convince him to leave America as he has big plans in Missouri.
The former goalkeeper has had quite an eventful life that has seen him spend 101 days in a Singapore jail when he was accused of match fixing.
Not long after, the now 49-year-old was declared dead on the pitch when his lungs collapsed following a collision during a game in England.
Pfannenstiel was also quizzed by police over a stolen penguin in Germany back in 2017.
Amazingly that was not the first time the former Germany Under-17 international was accused of the same crime.
The former Hoffenheim scout confessed in his autobiography The Unstoppable Keeper to “borrowing” a penguin from a New Zealand beach during his time with Dunedin.
Pfannenstiel said: “The police phoned me about a stolen penguin. They had received an anonymous tip-off that I might be involved.
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“But it wasn’t me. I urge the thief to return the penguin, as this is no joke. I know it well from the sins of my youth.
“In 2003 I took a penguin home from its colony and put it in my bathtub.
“But I returned it inside two days after my club chairman explained penguins were a protected species.
“Besides, my housemates were not delighted, as it stank like a fish factory. I did not steal it – I just borrowed it.”
His fundraising efforts in recent years have seen him live in an igloo as well as persuading the late great Diego Maradona to play a charity game in Antarctica.