Paid to Lose

摘要

A few minutes' walk from Berlin's famed Kurfiirstendamm, with its designer stores and stately plane trees, is an unremarkable, louche-looking drinking establishment called Cafe King. The bar stools and booths are black leather; the lighting is bordello red. On the walls are framed photos of assorted world landmarks: the Brandenburg Gate, the Eiffel Tower, the Kremlin. Football matches play on the numerous televisions.Berlin is an indifferent sporting city. In a soccer-mad country, its teams are league doormats that Berliners mostly ignore. Yet in the local sports scene, such as it is, Cafe King was once a hub. Players from soccer team Hertha BSC hung out there, as did basketball players from Alba Berlin and members of ice hockey team Eisbaren Berlin (the Berlin Polar Bears). The cafe's owner, Milan Sapina, knew the athletes and made them feel welcome. The place could get rowdy after games. On an evening in early March, however, the cafe was calm, and Milan, 47, sat glumly in a booth, drinking tea. He was just back from the industrial city of Bochum, in Western Germany, where he'd appeared in court for his role as an accomplice to his younger brother, Ante.