Chelsea striker Didier Drogba has been charged with attempted murder by the Metropolitan Police following the incident in which he threw a coin into the crowd during Wednesday’s Carling Cup defeat to lowly Burnley.

Wrist action lands Drogba in hot water

A warrant was issued late last night and in a dawn raid on his Upper Tooting mansion the Ivory Coast forward was arrested and taken to Scotland Yard HQ. A police spokesperson said “We can confirm that Drogba has been charged with attempted murder. We have studied video footage and we can clearly see that he spots the person who threw the coin at him. As he is a master of six different martial arts, including Karate, Ju-jitsu, Kung Po and Wang Chung, we can tell by his throwing technique that he was trying to throw the coin with a 36 degree curve on it so it would enter the offender’s ear at 98mph, the optimal speed for slicing through somebody’s head with a 50p piece.

We had no choice but to change the original charge of ABH to one of attempted murder. We are asking that no bail be set as he is obviously a flight risk and if he goes back to the Ivory Coast we’ll never find him. They all look the same over there with their enormous tusks”.

Chelsea have vowed to stand by their man and midfielder Frank Lampard has leapt to the defence of his teammate, saying “Look, let’s ignore the fact that a top level professional footballer felt he had to celebrate a goal against a team like Burnley by taunting their fans, fans with whom he has absolutely no history whatsoever. Let’s ignore the fact he was acting the big man and should, instead, have celebrated with his teammates or the Chelsea fans who have sappily forgiven him for his pathetic antics in the Champions League final.

Of course he shouldn’t have thrown the coin but then their fan shouldn’t have thrown it in the first place. Who is worse? He who throws it back or he who throws it in the very first initial place to start off with in the beginning? I think we all know the answer to that”.

As well as the possibility of spending the next 14 years in Pentonville Road prison Drogba is also facing a 3 match ban from the FA for ‘violent conduct’. There are genuine fears that the severity of this punishment from the footballing authorities might push the player over the edge and he is on 24 hour suicide watch. One of the security guards hired to protect him told us of the painstaking attention to detail they have to abide by.

“I’m an Arsenal fan”, he said. “I’m going to stick the portable on, drink tea and eat biscuits on the overnight shift and if I check in the morning and he’s hanging from the ceiling I might just say ‘Ooops’. I’d probably have a party though. You can come if you like”.

Drogba is not the first footballer to fall foul of the law. Earlier this year Sunderland’s El Hadji Diouf was arrested when a lorry registered in his name was stopped and found to contain 123 Chinese immigrants, Fulham star Danny Murphy was said to be the brains behind the 2004 Northern Bank robbery in Belfast while Liverpool’s Andrea Dossena was arrested and charged with impersonating a footballer.