Paddy Power refunds punters following Thierry Henry cheating Ireland out of World Cup

Following the dramatic ending to the Republic of Irelands World Cup campaign for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa where they lost the games due to a blatant handball by Thierry Henry, the Irish bookmaker Paddy Power have today refunded over £110,000 to punters who had backed Ireland to qualify for next years finals.

A spokesman for Paddy Power said “Luck of the Irish me arse! Not only did FIFA change the rules to protect the big teams, but then we drew France and that dirty little thief Henry cheats us out of a place in the World Cup. After all that we’re only too happy to put our hand in our pocket and hopefully ease some of the pain for our patriotic punters.”

The handball is not the first time that FIFA have courted controversy over the qualifying campaign, as when the draw for the play-offs was imminent FIFA announced that they would be introducing a seeding system for the draw which would make sure that the four teams with best records in recent tournaments would be drawn against the least successful teams for the play offs. This was condemned and accusations were thrown against FIFA that they were more motivated by finance and politics than fair play. It was suggested that FIFA wanted to ensure that the larger teams made it through to ensure higher viewing figures which in turn bring in more revenue from corporate sponsorship.

Rugby World Cup Betting Bonanza

The 2007 Rugby World Cup betting bonanza will reach £50m according to leading sources and that figure could be on the low side should England outperform their current odds of over 30/1. You can get prices on a repeat England win for Brian Ashton’s side of 33-1 from Bet Direct and Ladbrokes. England’s recent form is not good having lost 14 out of the last 22 games.

Ladbrokes have taken big bets on the favourite New Zealand who have reported to have taken a £90,000 bet at 4-9 on New Zealand and a huge £150,000 punt at 5-1 on South Africa, and Hill’s has been forced to cut France from 9-1 to 6-1 after £10,000 was gambled on Les Blues over the bank holiday weekend alone.

New Zealand do look the team but they have messed up many times in the past when well fancied and there best price of 4-7, is offered by Bet365 and Paddy Power. So although they are the most likely winners the All Blacks are by no means the best bet, especially if nerves and weight of expectation from back home end up as a factor.

South Africa are second favourites and you can get some nice each way value with Betfred a standout 13-2. France are available at 8-1 with Bet Direct and are another good each-way bet as France always does well on home soil.

In some of the other markets the All Blacks players heads the list of top tournament try-scorer. New Zealand have supplied the winner and the runner-up in this market in the past three World Cups. Joe Rokocoko and Sitiveni Sivivatu are 5-1 and 6-1 (both generally available) respectively. BoyleSports offers 2-1 either of them being top.

Source: Guardian