Betting was suspended by Paddy Power last week on the Premier League sack race after certain circumstances took place. A good number of bets were posted and rumors spread of a Roy Keane walkout at Sunderland.

Last week, Keane was leading the Sack race with a 14/1 standing while Mark Hughes of Manchester City was in the lead 3/1. By the end of the Friday betting had driven Keane to a 4/1 favorite while Hughes went down to 11/2. After this happened, Paddy Power stopped taking bets on the Sack Race.

The rumors stated that Keane had walked out on Sunderland and did not board the team bus for the trip to face Blackburn Rovers. A spokesman for the bookie, Darren Haines, commented: "This has come from nowhere but punters have piled onto Keane since lunchtime. Roy looked to be sitting pretty in the midfield of the sack race with other managers seemingly under far more pressure but, with his previous, there was always going to be a time come when punters jumped onto a Roy Keane walkout story like this.”

Keane has walked out on teams before so this would not be the first time. Keane quite Mick McCarthy’s Ireland World Cup team back in 2002.



- 2008-11-17