BLOODY LONG ODDS…

Paddy Power To Refund CL Final Bets If Ronaldo Scores!!
A rather interesting offer arrived in my inbox today. Now normally I bin these but this one caught my eye as it strikes me as a bit of a stick-on!

Basically, in a nutshell, Paddy Power are offering your money back on certain bets if Ronaldo scores in normal time during next week’s Champions League final.

Hang on let me just read that again. Hmmm, yep. That’s what it says. Now I’m no idiot, according to my mum, and correct me if I’m wrong, but if Man U score, Ronaldo scores. I mean OK, Scholesy got the emotional goal in the semi, but that was written in the stars back in ‘99, and this Portuguese boy…he’s the man in front of goal. Not to mention he takes all the Pens and FK’s too.

Why are they doing this??! Now I’m taking a punt here, but my guess is Paddy Power see Ronaldo scoring as a dead cert and if everybody punted on him they’d get taken to the cleaners. So, they worked out that refunding certain types of bet would put punters off betting on him. I’ll leave the maths to them, but I’m game!

So anyway, here’s the terms quoted by Paddy Power:

If Ronaldo scores in normal time, Paddy Power will refund ALL losing single pre-match Win-Draw-Win, Correct Score, 1^st/last/anytime goalscorer and Half-time/Full-time market bets on this match.

- Applies to singles placed before kick-off only

-Applies only to Win-Draw-Win, Corrrect Score, 1^st/last/anytime goalscorer and Half-time/Full-time market bets

- Max Refund €300/£200 per customer/bet

- Applies to win part of each way bets only

- Paddy Power football rules apply

- Ronaldo must score in normal time, offer does not apply to extra-time

- Own goals do not count

- Opta Index decision is final.

Er…see you there! Paddy Power…

Quarter Final stage of the Champions League and the English press are all bigging up the teams they normally love to knock down a peg or two and article after article speculating on who is the best in Europe…which is the best league in Europe, the best player in Europe…yada yada yada.

So when it comes down to the “Best Team” in Europe, how do you define that? How will we ever know? In my eyes, the Champions League does not provide proof of the best team in Europe. Best on the day perhaps…but not the best overall at all times with all-comers. Until such a time as we have a European league, with 30 or 40 games played over a full season, no knockout stages and a pucker full-on league programme, we’re never going to know.

Take Liverpool in 2005. They beat AC Milan (more…)