Football agent Saif Rubie is found not guilty of sending a threatening email to former Chelsea director Marina Granovskaia

Football agent Saif Rubie has been found not guilty of sending a threatening email to former Chelsea director Marina Granovskaia.

The intermediary broke down in tears in the dock as the jury read out the verdict before being formally released.

Rubie was accused of sending the email on May 22, 2022, over a payment he believed he was owed as part of Kurt Zouma’s move from Chelsea to West Ham in August 2021.

The agent denied he had threatened to cause distress to Granovskaia with the email and a jury has now cleared Rubie of the charge.

He was immediately discharged by Judge David Tomlinson.

The email in question read: ‘At the end of a very unique season for you and Chelsea comes to an end I am writing you to address the outstanding issues we have between us from the last 2 years.

‘I will try to keep this email as short as possible and to the point.

‘I was with Pini [Zahavi] (an agent) in Dubai recently and he told me that you had agreed to paying me (and my 2 partners on that deal) 300K GPB for bringing you the offer from West Ham for Kurt Zouma.

‘However Pini told me that you said you would pay me that money from other business in the future, hinting towards [Antonio] Rudiger. As you clearly know from the time I offered you a chance to extend the contract of Antonio by an extra year on the same salary and you refused and started playing games.

‘You went to Sahr [Senesie] (an agent) and started making up lies about me and HMRC regarding why you didn’t want to deal with me. That alone was defamatory and cost me a lot of business and trust due to your lies.

‘The truth is from that moment I shouldn’t have dealt with you again but I’m a gentleman and thought that you would be correct and due to my close personal relations to Sahr and his brother and family and big business I do with them away from football I was not going to make an issue of your slander towards me even though you tried your best to cut me out of business that I work very hard for and have never done anything wrong with you over the years but it seems you have an issue with me.

‘Then the way you have been with me was finally confirmed when I was in Abu Dhabi for the club World Cup when I went to visit Antonio and he told me that you had approached him questioning why he was friendly with me and was happy to deal with me.

‘Who do you think you are going to players in this way and talking rubbish about me? What have I done to you to make you so bitter and terrible towards me? So for that I will give you a chance to make things correct if you apologise for your behaviour towards me.

‘If you don’t then I promise you I will make you pay for the way you have been with me on a personal and business level. This is not a threat so take it how you want.

‘This is a promise that I give to anybody who f***s/tries to f*** me over in anything in life. I’m pretty sure you would never approach Lukaku and tell him why he is with [Federico] Pastorello your special friend.

‘In summary you owe me and my partners 300k which needs to get paid ASAP. If Chelsea don’t pay it then that debt will be on you to pay. I am done trying to be nice to you.

‘And feel free to go to your boss who’s had his recent problems and tell him that you have a big problem with me as long as you tell him the truth about your behaviour. Because in life you can’t be wrong and strong.

‘I look forward to hearing from you on the above matters and hopefully have a swift solution to them otherwise I guess I will see you when I see you.

‘I’m sure you’ve heard the story about your other friend Kia [Joorabchian] when he owed me money for a year and how he ended up paying it. Wouldn’t want you to be in the same situation just because you have a personal issue with me.’

Granovskaia explained during her testimony that she felt ‘physically threatened’ by the email, in particular the reference made to agent Kia Joorabchian.

Jurors heard that the alleged incident involving Joorabchian refers to a flashpoint in which he was said to have had his watch taken off him by associates of Rubie over payment issues.

However, in the agreed facts of the case read out in court by prosecution solicitor Arizuna Asante on Wednesday, it emerged police found no link between that incident and the defendant adding that Joorabchian never mentioned Rubie’s name at the time.

Rubie’s name does not feature in the crime report.

Joorabchian, who was due to give evidence in trial, would not be attending because he had flown to America. Joorabchian also told police that he was feeling unwell.

Rubie says he has opened civil proceedings against Granovskaia.