The home of Young Boys falls foul of rude semantics

In a bid to inject a little life into a neutral tournament in a neutral country, Oirish bookmakers Paddy Power have put up some tongue-in-cheek novelty markets. Currently, you can get 15/8 on Cristiano Ronaldo crying in the quarter-finals, and 100/1 on the Portuguese hiring a transsexual prostitute before missing a penalty.

Yet their best effort is entitled ‘First player to be pulled off at the Wankdorf Stadium?’ These days, the stadium is technically called Stade de Suisse, but the opportunity to make Ruud van Nistelrooy (favourite at 11/2) the victim of a sexually-charged pun is simply too good to pass up. His name is ‘Ruud’, which sounds like ‘rude’ - get it? Yeah, you get it.

To see Paddy Power’s Euro 2008 specials market and to receive a free £10 bet, click here.

Spoilsport Update: Rather coyly, they have renamed the Wankdorf market ‘First player to be subbed in Italy/ Holland’. Boooo.

Sad England won’t be playing in Euro 2008?… seriously, are you still on about that?

And so the reality pours down and smacks everyone right in the kisser - a big tournament is almost upon us, and England won’t be there. Other teams will, silly teams like Austria and Turkey. But no England. Not this year. It’s horrible.

Or, it would be.