Think your Son will play for England? You can bet on it

While Tiger Woods is not so keen on his future progeny playing the Beautiful Game, Eddie Kirkland is laughing all the way to the bank.

Kirkland’s son, goalkeeper Chris Kirkland, made his poppa proud yesterday by appearing in the second half of England’s friendly against Greece. The elder Kirkland placed a bet ten years ago at odds of 100/1 that his son would suit up for the Three Lions before the age of 30 and will walk away $19,000 richer after the keeper’s debut for England in Manchester (No, he did not place a bet that his son would be pictured in a less than flattering manner someday on The Offside).

Given the publicity surrounding Kirkland’s bet, British bookies think that there will be an increase in the number of parents planning their retirement accounts around their children’s athletic accomplishments.

“We have bets on our books for youngsters to grow up to play football for England, to win medals at the 2012 London Olympics, to win Wimbledon, the Open Golf Championship and to become world heavyweight boxing champions,” said William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe Thursday.

“If only a few of them come off we’ll be paying out over a million pounds (two million dollars, 1.5 million euros). And after the Kirkland success we expect to take scores of copy-cat bets.

“These bets are beginning to come to fruition now, because we first began taking them about 10 years ago.”

My own parents are now living in a mansion on the French Rivera thanks to a prudent trifecta bet two decades ago that their son would never play for his national team, he would be in serious financial debt by the age of 30 and that someday he would write a blog for a living.

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Category: World Football