Rob Horgan
MGM Marbella’s latest marquee signing Paddy Barnes has come under heavy fire for joining the controversial gym.
An Olympic bronze medalist in 2008 and 2012, Barnes joint MGM Marbella after Rio 2016.
However, the gym’s connection to the Kinahan cartel has sparked controversy at home.
In a Sunday World dispatch, crime reporter Nicola Tallant wrote an open letter to Barnes, telling him to ‘face up to reality’.
“Paddy, let me tell you a little bit about MGM,” she writes. “MGM is to Daniel Kinahan what Atletico Nacional Football Club was to Pablo Escobar.
She continues: “We were so proud of you when you brought home your medals from London. You were a true hero, a guy that all the parents would tell their kids about.
“Do you understand why people are upset? Can you comprehend that your sport is being poisoned.
“Take the blood money if you must. Wear the shirt of the Kinahan Cartel, but don’t try to tell people destroyed by their drugs and their hate that, really, they aren’t a bad bunch.
“And please, Paddy, don’t wear the Tricolour again.”
