Porn shop king speaks out on Sharks: 'I don't give sex toys to anyone'
Michael West | May 22, 2009
AS THE Cronulla Sharks desperately cast about for a corporate saviour to rescue the club from its fleeing sponsors, one of the men at the centre of the latest furore has painted the club as a scapegoat.
"It's wrong what they've done to the Sharks. They've just crucified them," said the Queensland porn-shop owner and publican Con Ange. "I'm just disgusted at how Cronulla is being forced to bear the brunt of every problem in society."
Speaking exclusively to the Herald, Mr Ange said he had no particular connection with the Sharks apart from being a rugby league fanatic who would often go to three games a weekend.
"I'm a rugby league supporter. I'm a member of the One-Eyed Eagles at Manly with a bunch of other fanatics. We all got together and chipped in for a box."
Mr Ange first met the Sharks' chief executive, Tony Zappia, four years ago at the Parramatta club. "In the boxes you often meet the club executives."
He rejects claims that he has any links with prostitution. "The only hooker that I know is the No. 9 for the Sharks and his name is Corey Hughes. I'm not a flesh pedlar, nor have I ever been a flesh pedlar."
Mr Ange has strong views about the group sex revelations that triggered the recent uproar. "I'm in the adult industry and believe a woman has a choice. If a woman wants to have group sex she should be able to."
The same standard, he said, should apply to the players, who he claims are singled out for having sex when everybody does it.
"Everybody has sex. We need sex to evolve."
Mr Ange said the league identity Matthew Johns had been victimised. "I can't stand what they have done to Matty Johns. He had consensual sex with a woman and they have crucified him.
"Everyone should be accountable for their own actions"
Of the Christchurch woman who had sex with Johns and other Sharks, he said: "She knocked back players. She was in control. It's not as if the players were forcing themselves on her."
Mr Ange denies giving sex toys to the Sharks. "I've got adult stores in Brisbane but I don't give out sex toys to anyone."
He said he had asked a friend at the club for a jersey signed by the players.
"In return I sent them back a box with 22 Billabong T-shirts, a dozen Hustler T-shirts and a dozen Hustler hats. And that box I personally delivered and left at the front desk there." He also denies taking sex workers into the dressing rooms, saying the women in question worked for a brewery.
"After the game we went down to the tunnel. We waited outside the change rooms. At no stage did the girls enter the change rooms."
As for using the expressions Bitch One and Bitch Two?
"I have never used that terminology
I'm a family man. I've grown up with some kinds of morals and I don't refer to women [like that].
"It's degrading to women."
