‘Girls like you, I kill’ – Arsenal Women legend Alex Scott reveals life-threatening Uber ride at 2018 World Cup in Russia which left her ‘numb’ and needing Vladimir Putin meeting to escape
Arsenal and England Women legend Alex Scott has revealed her life was threatened by a taxi driver while working at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
The BBC pundit also said she had to use photos with Russian president Vladimir Putin to escape from the situation which left her ‘numb’.
Scott was working at the 2018 tournament and said the BBC made sure all staff used official pre-booked cars while on duty.
However, after meeting a friend she opted to use an Uber, which quickly turned incredibly disturbing, as she detailed in her memoir How (Not) To Be Strong.
Describing the driver as 'a stacked bald man, stocky, and wearing a grin on his face' she wrote: “He looked at me and said – in English – ‘Tell them they will never see you again.’
“‘I don’t understand,’ I stammered.
“My Uber driver picked up his phone and spoke into it, waiting for me to see the words as they appeared via Google Translate - ‘Tonight I am not taking you home,’ [it] read. ‘You come with me.’
“My body went numb,” she wrote.
Most read in Football
Scott, 35, the went on to explain that by using Google Translate on his phone, he told her 'horrible, terrible things: how he takes girls like me, how they never make it home'.
The car doors were locked and she messaged her agent and 'told him if I wasn’t back in 15 minutes to send a search party'.
Things then got desperate as the driver said: “Girls like you, I kill,” which sparked her survival instinct.
“Putin! I had been with Putin that morning!” she thought. “‘You can’t kill me,’ I said. ‘I have to see Putin tomorrow.’”
A negotiation began, with photos of her and the president then proving crucial.
She wrote: “He started laughing. ‘No one sees Putin’. I was scrambling now, pulling up photos from the morning’s visit to the Kremlin that had made newspaper headlines.
“His laughter died and I could see the cogs whirring as he tried to process what I was showing him. ‘If I don’t see Putin tomorrow, he will find you.’”
The driver then returned Scott to her hotel before trying to touch and kiss her as she escaped from the taxi.
She added: “I knew then what a near-miss I’d had but, rather than confront it, I just… brushed aside the incident like it had never happened.
“I didn’t want people to worry about me or think I couldn’t handle myself – just like when I was young.”