BAKER WORLD ON FIRE Is Snoop still in? And where is Sharif?

(Ex?) London Bakers Coach Snoop Dogg just after performing at a Trump pre-inaugural event he christened as Mar-a-Doggo. 

By Ariel-Mutha Tafoya

FSN Sports

 

In a development that threatens the integrity and perhaps the very existence of the NFFA, the embrace of Donald Trump by Bakers coach Snoop Dogg has spurred protests in Europe and the US, led to calls for Snoop’s dismissal (or worse), and created repercussions that resounded across the entire league.

 

Meanwhile, amid the crisis, Bakers owner Sir QCurl Sharif seems to have disappeared, leading to rumors and wild speculation as to his whereabouts and the reasons for his silence so far.

 

Last weekend, before the swearing-in of Donald Trump on January 20, Snoop performed at a pre-inaugural event on Trump’s behalf—a dramatic turnabout from the video he produced during Trump’s first term that included a thinly veiled call for the president’s assassination. The Bakers organization appeared to have been blindsided by Snoop’s cozy embrace of Trump. 

 

Reached on the evening of January 18—his last known contact with the outside world—Sharif told a reporter that the Bakers’ leadership team was in an “urgent, closed-door meeting to determine [Snoop’s] fate.” Other sources depicted a chaotic scene in which “QCS was doing a lot of hallucinogens,” while team advisor Martha Stewart was wandering through Sharif’s West End Treehouse in a drunken stupor, rearranging flowers, and Friend of the Bakers Beyoncé was urging the owner to part ways with their coach immediately.

 

Since then, Sharif has not appeared in public. He failed to show up on Sunday morning for an emergency meeting of the NFFA Security Council called by league commissioner Bernie Sanders. One source said that Sharif had retreated to his sensory deprivation chamber, where he often holes up during times of crisis. Another source claimed to have seen him ascending the remote mesa that is home to Zuni Pueblo in the New Mexico desert. Neither of these accounts could be immediately confirmed.

 

Sharif’s disappearance also has given rise to rumors that he is being held hostage after Snoop revealed his whereabouts to Trump’s FBI—and that Trump might turn him over to Vladimir Putin, who has placed a $10 million bounty on Sharif’s head following his involvement in Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory. Some speculated that Snoop had turned over team secrets to Trump’s team, which planned to sell them to Russia. Still other rumors swirled that Sharif had been murdered and buried under concrete being poured for Nashville’s new NFL stadium.

 

Meanwhile, the crisis created by Snoop’s embrace of Trump—whose threats helped prompt the Bakers’ move to London in 2017—only intensified in Sharif’s absence. In a statement issued after the Security Council meeting, Sanders said, “The Bakers have long been the moral heart and soul of this league and the staunchest defenders of its integrity. When a beloved head coach, and Sir Q’s close friend and confidante, cozies up to a figure who our founder, Dr. Linardo, has likened to Hitler, it brings the integrity of the entire league into question. It threatens to turn the NFFA into just another sports league instead of the greatest fantasy league of all time.”

 

After the news of Snoop’s performance at the Trump gala broke, protesters were seen in front of the Tree House. The crowds, which have steadily grown since Sunday to a number that police estimated at 5,000, at one point Tuesday afternoon blocked off the westbound lanes of West End Avenue. Some derisively labeled the fabled location where Barack Obama and Joe Biden once attended all-night “green caviar” parties, as the “Trump Treehouse.”

 

Other protests erupted in front of the Bakers’ old Cherry Bomb Café headquarters, where 12 South activist Roz Tefarian held a sign that read “Weed Out Snoop.” NFFA headquarters in downtown Nashville became a third protest site, where Bakers fan Jeff Lebowski commandeered a bullhorn and told the crowd, “This aggression will not stand, man!”

 

In London, several hundred people held a candlelight vigil for Sharif in Piccadilly Circus, praying for his safe return and singing “God Save Sir Q” to the tune of “God Save the Queen.”

 

In one disturbing development, Bakers superfan Bill Cheatham was arrested outside Sharif’s One-Eyed Pig club in London, where police said he was behaving erratically and found to be carrying a 3-D-printed ghost gun. A source with Scotland Yard said that Cheatham may have been planning to assassinate Sharif.

 

King Charles III, who normally does not comment on political affairs, raised eyebrows when he said on Wednesday that, if Snoop remained in the Bakers’ organization, the British government might have to consider revoking a permit to hold the Bacchanal to the Future celebration every other year in Hyde Park. That, said economists, would inflict a major blow both on London’s tourist economy and on the NFFA’s prestige. Ringo Starr, who was confirmed last week as the Grand Marshall for the 2025 Bacchanal in Nashville, now is reportedly wavering after the news about Snoop Dogg.

“I’m worried Ringo may pull out,” said Meta World Death, who handles artist booking for the Bacchanal. “On the phone yesterday he told me, ‘I don’t ask for much, I only want trust, and you know it don’t come easy.’ QCurl sang with him onstage at the Ryman last week, and now he’s worried he can’t trust us not to be Trumpers.”

Pressure on Sharif to act is coming from fellow owners, too. On Wednesday afternoon, Village Green owner Dave Goodrow issued a statement saying, “I once embraced Donald Trump as a co-owner of my team, and I deeply regret it, of course, so I empathize with QCurl’s situation. But when the time came I did not hesitate from my duty to the integrity of the league to terminate with extreme prejudice my relationship with Trump. Now it is time — well past time — for Sharif to act. We are all depending on him to rise to the urgent moment, as he always done before.”