(CNN.com)It began as a hilarious high-light to an otherwise lackluster football match: Sutton United’s “rolypoly goalie” Wayne Shaw found noshing on a pie through the last half of the team’s FA Cup match against Arsenal.
But what started as a lark has finished with investigations as well as the resignation of the much-beloved substitute goalkeeper.
You see, Sun Bets — which controversially changed Sutton’s regular patron only for the Arsenal match — had 8/1 oddson Shaw being found munching on a pie on the side-line.
The Monday match was billed as the greatest in David v. Goliath match-ups. The Premier League’s fourth-place team, the Arsenal Gunners, were established traveling to Gander Green Lane (ability approximately 6,000 with a short-term stand to adapt Arsenal supporters) to accept non-league Sutton United, a squad that sits 105 spots beneath the Gunners in the standings.
In the last half of the fixture, after Arsenal striker Theo Walcott set the Gunners up 2- its substitutions had exhausted, cams found Shaw to the side-line unabashedly — enthusiastically even — scarfing down exactly what the observers said was a pie.
Maybe not since the New York Jets’ Mark Sanchez ate that hotdog on the side-line have athletics and culinary art collided in this high profile manner.
My new favourite non-#Arsenal, non-American participant is #3 9 & #SuttonUnited;s back-up GK Wayne Shaw. The bar was hit by him during half-time of the #FACup match. Presented in slowmo to magnify its glory…
Shaw would later explain on Twitter that it proved to be a pasty, not a pie. Meat and potato, to be precise. (A pasty is a baked pastry related to, as well as sometimes, indistinguishable from, a pie. It’s nothing — repeat, nothing — to do with strip clubs or tassels.)
Needless to say, not one of this should’ve found anyone off-guard. Shaw had previously formed a visit to the pub at half-time, where a BBC reporter caught him going out out with supporters.
It was all fun and games till the Football Association in England as well as the United Kingdom’s Gambling Commission stepped in.
In a statement provided for CNN.com, an FA spokesman stated, “We are investigating to establish whether there has been any breach of The FA rules relating to betting.”
The Gambling Commission also started its enforcement, a probe and intelligence manager Richard Watson said in a declaration.
“Ethics in athletics isn’t a jest and we’ve started an investigation to confirm precisely what occurred. Within that we’ll be considering any irregularity in the betting marketplace and confirming if the operator has fulfilled its (permit) necessary to run its business with ethics,” he said.
The commission included in a e-mail that it’d warned bookmakers in June about possible ethics problems calling for “novelty markets,” which contain offthewall stakes on such things as pie ingesting.
Hold on, wagers on pie??
Pie eating, yup.
The gambling service needed to spend up, when the huge guy started chowing down. To the tune of at least 10,000 (around $12,500), according to a Sun Bets tweet.
Compounding matters is that Shaw told reporters subsequent to the match he was conscious Sun Bets had put odds on his midgame bite, according to multiple reviews.
“Some of the of the lads mentioned to me before on: ‘What’s happening with the 8-1 about ingesting a pie?’ I mentioned, ‘I do not understand, I Have consumed no Thing all day, therefore I I may give it a go later on,'” he stated. “I believed I’d give them a little banter and permit do it. Every one of the sandwiches were on and we were 2-0 down.
“I went and got it at half time from your kitchen. I had it all prepared and willing to go. It was meat and potato. … It was only a little banter in their opinion. It’s something to make the event also and you’ll be able to look straight back and say it was portion of it and we got our ticket cash back,” he added.
Strict principles on betting
A 2014 edict prohibited footballers from gaming, as well as the rules say that gamers can not instruct somebody else to guess on a football-related issue or pass on info which could help someone in gaming.
Asked if he realized anybody who put a wager, Shaw responded, “I believe there were a few individuals. Clearly, we’re not let to gamble. I do believe some of the teammates along with some of the supporters.”
On Tuesday morning, it looked like the hullabaloo would blow-over. Stories of Shaw’s joviality propagate extensively, as well as the 4-5-year old goal keeper looked to be loving the limelight during a look on “Good Morning Britain.”
Shaw, who also serves as Sutton” s goalkeeping arena and mentor caretaker, laughed combined with the talk display hosts as they revealed an image of him vacuuming the area turf of Gander Green Lane in slippers ahead of the Arsenal match.
But shortly, the terrible news arrived, as Sutton supervisor Paul Doswell advised Sky Sports News HQ that he “woke up this morning and a mini-crisis had started.”
“We realized the implications of what had happened, with regards to the FA and the Gambling Commission, and unfortunately Wayne has resigned from his position on the back of that,” Doswell mentioned.
