SHARIF NAMED PAPAL NUNCIO Diplomatic status opens doors to US for embattled Bakers owner

Bakers owner QCurl Sharif has a message for President Trump from the Vatican.

By Ariel Mutha-Tafoya

FSN Sports

In a surprise announcement from the Vatican Tuesday morning, Sir QCurl Sharif has been named as a papal nuncio to the Choctaw Nation of Tennessee.

The announcement, which came with little fanfare, was issued through a news release from the Holy See Press Office and an accompanying story in L’Osservatore Romano, the official newspaper of the Vatican.

In a telephone interview, Vatican spokesman Father Guido Sarducci said that the appointment — the first time a nuncio has been sent to a Native American tribe — came about through the intercession of Cardinal Giorgio Leonardo, who once occupied an office next to Sharif’s Cherry Bomb Café in Nashville’s 12 South district. According to Father Sarducci, Cardinal Leonardo spoke directly to Pope Francis, urging him to equip Sharif with diplomatic credentials that would allow him to travel to Nashville freely.

In August, the Trump administration declared Sharif persona non grata and barred him from entering the United States. Federal judge Naomi Morningstar ruled that the administration could not legally deny the right, guaranteed under the NFFA’s constitution, of a team owner to attend his or her team’s games. But the U.S. Supreme Court stayed Judge Morningstar’s ruling pending a decision by the high court that is expected sometime next year. 

The political pressure on Sharif, who served as a freedom fighter in Ukraine against a Russian invasion and who is close to former Ukraine president Petro “the Chocolate King” Poroshenko, has only increased since he publicly identified himself last month as the “whistleblower,” whose official complaint triggered the impeachment investigation into President Donald J. Trump.

When a reporter pointed out the unusual timing of the Vatican announcement, which coincides with Bacchanal Week in Nashville — noting that the West Nashville Beelzebubbas’ Club Gitmo nightclub and team headquarters are located on sovereign Choctaw Nation lands and that Sharif would now enjoy diplomatic immunity from arrest — Father Sarducci responded: “To be honest, I did not know that Sharif was a Catholic. Maybe he’s not. If you talk to him first, would you ask him? But what can I tell you? Sir Q is doing the Lord’s work in standing up to white nationalism, and we know that the Lord works in mysterious ways. I mean, first Moses and now this.”

Attempts to reach Sharif on Tuesday were unsuccessful. The embattled owner of the London Bakers spent last weekend at his heavily guarded country estate, reportedly writing songs with Robert Plant for a new Led Zeppelin album. A person who answered the phone at the Bakers’ team offices in Central London said that Sharif planned to travel to Nashville after the annual Integrity Dinner to attend the Bacchanal and the Bubbas-Bakers tilt, which has playoff implications for both teams. During the telephone conversation, an unidentified voice could be heard in the background shouting, “Rawk!”