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Marina Granovskaia felt ‘physically threatened’ by an email sent to her by football agent Saif Rubie, a court heard today.
Speaking publicly for the first time since leaving Chelsea in 2022, Granovskaia - previously a Chelsea director - described her fears after receiving an email from Rubie demanding money he believed he was owed money from the deal that saw Kurt Zouma leave Stamford Bridge for West Ham.
Giving testimony in court on Tuesday morning, Granovskaia was asked by prosecuting solicitors Arizuna Asante how she felt upon receiving the email.
She responded: ‘Very uncomfortable would be an understatement. I felt physically threatened because of the language being used made it personal because he referred to the Kia [Joorabchian] incident.’
Earlier in the day, Mr Asante told the court that Mr Joorabchian was confronted in a restaurant by people acting for defendant Rubie which saw Joorabchian have his watch taken from him and told it wouldn’t be returned until a payment was made later.
Marina Granovskaia felt ‘physically threatened’ by an email sent to her by agent Saif Rubie
Rubie is accused of sending a threatening email and breaching the Malicious Communications Act
Kurt Zouma's £29.1m move to West Ham from Chelsea in 2021 is at the centre of the trial
It was added that approximately twelve men turned up at Joorabchian's office started to intimidate and demand money from him saying that the defendant wanted his money.
The email allegedly sent to Granovskaia from Rubie 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
