Derby land Sky Bet Transfer Fund windfall

Rams get cash injection from bookie competition

Skybet
Skybet

Football League sponsors Sky Bet have handed over £250,000 prize money to Championship outfit Derby Country after supporter Richard Jones landed them the cash in the Sky Bet Transfer Fund. The competition ran by online betting site Sky Bet was drawn to a conclusion on the weekend live on Sky Sports and Jones saw his name pulled out of the hat.

All of the entrants to the competition were whittled down to the final ten for the live draw at random and then Derby were the final benefactors leaving the other nine finalists Peterborough, Carlisle, Ipswich, Cardiff, Rotherham, Coventry, Newport, Bolton and Southend empty handed.

Jones pocketed £5,000 for himself and Derby get the huge boost of cash which can either be spent on signing new players or on current wagers. Derby has already been busy this summer bringing in Darren Bent, Alex Pearce, Scott Carson, Chris Baird, Andreas Weimann and Tom Ince after just missing out on the Championship play-offs last term.

”We’re really pleased,” said Brandon Furse, head of ticketing, analytics and technology at Derby. ”We’re pleased for Rich Jones and we thank him for putting us forward.

“This money will certainly help. We’ve got a new football management team at Derby. This will certainly help to strengthen us and it could make a difference.

“We’ve been close the last couple of seasons and, who knows, this might just be the player that scores us that goal or saves that goal for us. We’ll put it to very, very good use.”

Derby is the second winners of the Sky Bet Transfer Fund, Nottingham Forest being the inaugural winners last December, who used the funds to get Chelsea’s Todd Kane and Aston Villa’s Gary Gardner on loan.