It has become a must-read for a corner of the football internet. Every Monday afternoon Richard Keys will tweet a link to a blog post on his website and, invariably, there will be several attempted drive bys and a healthy dose of salacious gossip contained within.
Arsenal and Steven Gerrard have been recent targets and Rafa Benitez is never far from the former Sky Sports anchor’s sights. When it comes to predicting what is about to happen within the game - pointing out a manager who may be in trouble, for instance - Keys has a pretty decent track record too.
It is pretty evident that he remains tuned in despite being on the opposite side of the world, that he is still well connected, speaking to many of those who remain in the know.
And while those of us in the UK are limited to whatever clips from his TV work at Bein Sport make it on to social media - on top of his recently relaunched podcast with Andy Gray that contains a similar ratio of potshots at all manner of people across the game - there can be little dispute he is a forgotten presence for many fans who do not while their days away on the internet.
Well, until there are occasional stories such as the excerpt published from Gabby Logan’s new book at the weekend.
Keys says he is weighing up whether to sue the BBC presenter after he claimed she defamed him by writing about an alleged conversation that Logan claims happened between him and Gray while in Logan’s vicinity on the way to the 2005 Champions League final, when she was seven months pregnant with twins.
Keys, Logan says, asked Gray what he thought of pregnant women. The former Everton player’s response, according to the book, was: "I'm afraid I don't find them very attractive, Richard. In fact, I never slept with my wife when she was pregnant with our kids."
Logan then said Keys allegedly asked Gray whether that meant he "didn't have sex", to which his sidekick replied: "No, I didn't say that, Richard." Logan said the duo "laughed their heads off at their little 'comedy' routine", leaving her "embarrassed". She described their exchange as "cruel, bearing in mind they both had children and wives of their own". Later she describes them both as "dinosaurs, waiting to become extinct."
So back to Keys' blog. This week's topic was always going to be Logan and he responds by alleging that Logan took the approach of "sex sells" during her brief time at Sky, a role Keys claims he helped her land. "How sad that somebody I haven’t seen for 30 years - and for whom I went out of my way to help start their career - feels the need to take the cheap and inaccurate option by smearing me," he wrote before telling a few tales of his own.
Keys' initial response, via Twitter, on Saturday night read: "With reference to an article published by The Mail on Sunday written by Ms Gabby Logan. Ms Logan has made a number of wildly inaccurate allegations in the process of defaming my reputation. I have referred the matter to lawyers with a view to proceeding with libel action."
Gray has not made any comment since the serialisation appeared online.
Whether such action materialises remains to be seen but in a court of public opinion there is little disputing who comes out on top. Logan is admired up and down the land despite attempts to besmirch her reputation - the book also details unfounded accusations that she was having an affair with Alan Shearer.
Keys and Gray, on the other hand, have been personae non gratae for the major broadcasters in the UK since that grotesque conversation in January 2011 of them singling out Sian Massey for having the temerity to be a female in football.
The misogyny requires little elaboration here but Sky’s reaction to the incident was swift and telling. Even more so Keys’ lame excuse when it comes to understanding his mindset. “It was prehistoric banter,” he infamously told TalkSport, who ended up hiring both a couple of weeks later, before pointing out that no one would be working in television if all the off-camera remarks were leaked. (Several years later, it should be added, Keys phoned Massey to apologise personally).
There was also some work at getting the Frank Warren-backed Box Nation channel off the ground before Keys moved to Doha to become Al Jazeera’s anchor with Gray as lead pundit. From there the pair became BeIn’s focal points, surrounded by a rotating cast of well-known former players and managers.
But it is also hard not to countenance the numerous tales about Keys’ personal life, not least the alleged cheating on his wife with a friend of his daughter’s that became public knowledge in 2018. Keys denies that story but several other people, including his now ex-wife Julia and daughter Jemma argue otherwise.
For the average viewer those are the stories that come to mind.
Keys’ bonafides as a Proper Football Man should not be disputed - it has been the other stuff that has consistently tripped him up for more than a decade and that may explain why, irrespective of the quality information contained within, those weekly blog posts have little more than a cult following.
