By Ariel Mutha-Tafoya
FSN Sports
At his first press conference in five years, league founder and West Nashville Beelzebubbas Chairman Dr. Jorgé Linardo began with a bold announcement on Thursday morning: He had reached out to President Donald J. Trump, offering to purchase and relocate the Statue of Liberty for $1 billion.
Linardo said his telephone conversation with the president had been “friendly and productive,” and that Trump seemed extremely interested in the proposition. “He said it sounded like it might be an offer he couldn’t refuse,” Linardo said.
Asked what prompted the highly unusual bid, the former Nobel Peace Prize nominee responded, “It became apparent to us that the Statue of Liberty is no longer a fitting symbol of the outlook of Estados Unidos toward the world. Commissioner McMahon and Saddam Hussein and I were talking about it over drinks the other night, and Saddam said, ‘Why don’t we buy it and move it here?’ I could see what it meant to him. I saw tears in his eyes. Club Gitmo has been a welcoming place of liberty and refuge for him. And now people from his native country are being kept out.
“So I said, ‘Let’s do this.’ What place better stands for liberty today than Club Gitmo? Here, the Lady would again be a beacon to the world.”
Linardo said that the terms of the offer were negotiable, but that the team was committed to paying in cash or precious metals and would also bear the costs of relocating the statue from New York City to West Nashville. He suggested that some of the purchase price would come from $100 million in bitcoin under the terms of a tentative agreement reached with Corsairs owner Mojo D to settle gambling debts at the Club Gitmo sports book. Linardo also said he was “deeply moved” by Hussein’s offer to sell part of his collection of rare gold coins and contribute the proceeds to the effort.
Efforts to reach the White House for comment were unsuccessful.
Even if the purchase offer was not accepted, Linardo said, the team would consider building an exact replica of the Statue of Liberty on the Club Gitmo campus. He pointed out that the city already has a replica of the Parthenon. “The symbolic value would be enormous,” he said, between sips of mezcal from a glass. “Think of it. People could come here to see Lady Liberty, try their hand with Lady Luck in the sports book, watch some football, eat in a nice restaurant and then use our indoor shooting range. It’s the entire American experience in one location.”
