What if the ITV FA Cup blunder was deliberate?

ITV’s decision to show us 117 minutes of unwatchable tripe and then cut away from the only interesting moment has been met with fierce criticism by all the daily newspapers (The Sun provides furious fan quotes; the consistently outraged Daily Mail told us it’s the immigrants’ fault and everything would be better if Princess Diana was still here).

One thing all the reports of the blunder had in common, however, is that they specifically mentioned the three companies whose products were shilled while Dan Gosling was scoring the winner - Tic Tacs, Action for Children and Volkswagen. They all received a massive amount of free publicity from the debacle - is it at all possible that Tic Tacs and co struck a deal with the ITV devil to work their way into the national consciousness?

[Our theory is flawed by the fact that they couldn’t have planned for extra time or for a last minute goal, but everyone loves a good conspiracy, right? If you need us, we’ll be on the roof of Spoiler towers with our shotguns and tin foil hats.]