Betcast, Late But Worth The Wait

The FTL is now full - 32 entries, and a total guaranteed prize fund of £2,200, a total boosted by a £200 sponsorship from #32 - Betcast.

Another Australian based entrant, David runs bettingwebsites.org and has a number of trading Betcast Podcasts which you should all check out immediately.

The prize money will be split as follows: League £1,600, Erskine Cup £400 and Betcast Monthly Prizes £200. This works out rather neatly so that the two sponsors who donated money up front get name recognition on their respective sub-competitions, while the league is comprised of the entry fees plus the possibility (probability?) of at least some bounty payments being added.

The Bounty Boys, lest we forget, are:

Football Elite http://www.football-elite.co.uk/

TFA http://the-football-analyst.blogspot.co.uk/

Football Investor http://www.football-investor.co.uk/

Skeeve http://www.skeevepicks.com/

All will be paying out £25 to every entrant finishing ahead of them (up to a cap of £500).

The first monthly prize (of £25) will be for the table leader at the end of September, by which time the Erskine Cup will be in progress. With 32 entries, some of you may have guessed that the format will be the same as that used for the FIFA World Cup. I could have made it a straight knock-out tournament, but this way seemed like a fun idea.

Eight groups of four will see entrants play at least three 'matches' against another, with the top two in each advancing to a knock-out phase. With £400 to play for, the winner will get £150, the runner-up £75, losing semi-finalists £37.50 and losing quarter-finalists £25. With the cup and monthly prizes to compete for, the hope is that interest is maintained, as even someone out of the running for a league prize can always get lucky on a weekend or a month.

The Erskine Cup schedule will be:

September 27th, Group Stage Match 1

November 1st, Group Stage Match 2
November 29th, Group stage Match 3
January 31st, Round of 16
February 28th, Quarter-Finals
March 21st, Semi-Finals
April 25th - Final

The date refers to the Saturday of the weekend, but entries from all four days will make up the round. For the group phase, the winner will get three points, and the winner will be the more successful (or least unsuccessful) of the match up. In the event of a draw, one point each. 

The 'draw' will be seeded, with positions based on the FTL table as it stands after the weekend of September 20th. And I don't want to see anyone tanking to give themselves an easier draw!

Skeeve's Croatia Football Bets had another winner, and were they eligible, would be running away with the FTL already:

Three more selections in-play tonight, but that ROI is looking impressive.

On a completely different topic, the Crystal Palace manager saga, I am seeing Cardiff city owner Vincent Tan in a whole new light. Like most outsiders at the time, I felt that Malky Mackay was rather hard done by, but check out this video where he hints at some problems when Malky's transfer dealings, and also gets in a dig that in his two years at Watford, Mackay didn't do too well. The incredibly stupid text messages that he and Iain Moody are accused of exchanging should make it very hard for either of them to work at a top football club again. They sound like two immature schoolboys from a century ago, and I think Palace had a lucky 1.01 escape. The video also reinforces my opinion that, regardless of who the manager is, the owners or board need to monitor what is going on with spending, one reason reportedly why Steve Parish quite rightly refused to give in to Pulis' demands.

Of course, that Pulis had already been tapped up for the West Ham United manager's job, and was looking for an excuse to walk, is just pure speculation.