online sports betting news

I would imagine that sales of Gillette razors in Ireland have suffered somewhat since Thierry Henry decided to give his French team a helping hand towards the World Cup finals last week. It was certainly a bizarre way to audition for the Cirque du Soleil, where such manual dexterity surely belongs. Henry’s faux pas, of course, has had repurcussions far beyond the world of football with questions asked in The Oireachtas (Irish Parliament to you and me) and a war of words exploding between Irish ministers and their French counterparts. Even the Gallic press were pretty united in their condemnation of the national side. Le Monde’s headline read "Blues Relieved, Irish Disgusted", while Le Parisen led with "Henry Saves France With His Hand". Former World Cup winner Bixente Lizarazu went as far as to say that the French performance was ‘catastrophic’ so it’s no surprise to see Raymond Domenech’s side can be backed at 18-1 with Blue Square and 888sport to triumph in South Africa. Incidentally, in a post-script to the World Cup qualifier in Paris, FIFA have announced they are to discuss the Henry incident at an extraordinary general meeting just two days before the draw for the group stages of the finals is made, with an inquiry into alleged irregular betting patterns in other qualifiers also due to take place. Unfortunately, the Irish won’t get a second chance, which is a pity because all this has rather taken the shine off a joint Franco-Irish venture which should have captured more headlines than it did. The Paris-Mutual Urbain is the largest betting organisation in Europe and its decision to use the technical know-how of Paddy Power for its move into fixed-odss betting is a ground-breaking deal for the innovative Irish bookmaker. The five-year agreement is expected to create more than 200 jobs at Paddy Power’s Dublin head office with, ironically, the new technology’s first big test being the 2010 World Cup. So more jobs for Dublin but worrying times in Liverpool after Ladbrokes announced that they are to close their call centre near Aintree racecourse. The firm will retain its call centre at its UK headquarters in Harrow but, of course, it now does most of its business out of Gibraltar. It’s probably fair to say that the betting industry no longer offers the job security it once did.