Die Anpflanzler [DA] » Friday night.

PARIS - Dont laugh. Theres nothing funny about the gambling industrys latest wheeze to sink its teeth even deeper into football and its fans.Were talking here about David Ginola. So silky as a player for Newcastle and Tottenham; so ridiculous now with his car-crash campaign for the FIFA presidency.Ginola has zero chance of unseating Sepp Blatter. FIFAs election and ethics rules will almost certainly keep him off the May ballot. After Thursdays passing of the entry deadline, Team Ginola should fade away.But thats not the point here. This was about making a splash. In pocketing 250,000 pounds (335,000 euros; US$375,000) from bookmaker Paddy Power for this stunt, Ginola became the latest Trojan horse in the gambling and gaming industrys creeping and creepy embrace of football.Im here today to talk about love were the Frenchmans seductive opening words at his campaign launch in London this month.But the targets were our wallets and spending habits, not our hearts. That much was clear from the Paddy Power branding.Bet. Bet again. Bet some more.That is the message that football, more than most other sports, is mainlining into our homes, helped by names like Ginola and teams lending their cachet, stadiums, jerseys and players to the industry that had cash to splash when the 2008 financial crisis hobbled other sponsors.Its eyeballs were after, 12Bet executive Rory Anderson, quoted in the Daily Mail, said when the online bookmaker became the name on Hull Citys shirt for this Premier League season.And how about this blurb from Sky Bet, title sponsor since 2013 of Englands three divisions below the Premier League. It reads like a plug for Fifty Shades of Grey.Sport matters more when theres money on it, it says. Theres more passion, more pleasure and more pain.Whoa. What ever happened to sport for sports sake, for the buzz of competition, not a bet? How quaint. That was before online bookmakers offered odds on anything and everything, from match results and goals scored to which team will win the coin toss or take the first corner, and before their relentless advertising.Sports and gambling have, of course, long gone together, feeding off each others success and growth. Tuning in for results of football betting pools, which offered big jackpots for small stakes, was a Saturday afternoon ritual for many 20th Century English families.But gambling advertising wasnt as in-your-face as now. In the UK, which liberalized gambling advertising in 2007, adults exposure to gambling commercials on television soared five-fold in eight years to 2012, regulator Ofcom found. The increase was three-fold for children aged 4-15.Asking your kids to make tea during half-time breaks wont shield them from the bombardment, not with gambling ads flashing throughout matches on pitch-side light-boards. Hull against Aston Villa on Feb. 10 will pit two Asian online bookmakers against each other. Villas shirt sponsor is dafabet, a name that works better in Chinese, where dafa means big wealth. Stoke and Burnley players are billboards for Bet365 and Fun88 (another name that plays on the Chinese word to get rich).All this in a sport grappling with the increasing danger of gambling-related match-fixing and with ample examples of gambling-addicted players who frittered away their wealth.One of those is Kevin Twaddle, a former player for Motherwell and other Scottish clubs who told his story in the biography, Life On The Line: How to Lose a Million and So Much More. He no longer gambles and has delivered talks to other players about the risks.Twaddle takes a very dim view of Ginolas Paddy Power-backed grab for FIFA.Its an absolute disgrace, he said in a phone interview. Its great for Paddy Power. But I mean youre talking about one of the biggest, powerfulest jobs in football and all youre getting to hear about is Paddy Power.It just makes like a mockery of football.Imagine, for a moment, a Paddy Power-financed FIFA president. It wont happen; FIFAs ethics rules should see to that. But the mere thought of the gambling industry even attempting to place a stooge at the very top of football makes the prospect of another Blatter term seem perhaps not quite so bad.And that isnt funny at all.___John Leicester is an international sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jleicester@ap.org or follow him at http://twitter.com/johnleicester Ray Ban Sunglasses Outlet . - Ryan Spooner scored twice to lead the Boston Bruins to a 6-1 victory over the New York Islanders in a preseason game Friday night. Ray Ban Sunglasses Cheap USA . Of course that doesnt mean hes ignoring it. Thats actually rather impossible given the behind-the-scenes access to the Toronto Maple Leafs the network is getting. http://www.raybancheap.us/ . - Jacksonville Jaguars defensive end Jason Babin is now a free agent. Ray Ban Sunglasses Cheap Online . His recovery time is expected to be six to eight months. Seidenberg was injured in the third period of Fridays 5-0 victory over the Ottawa Senators, when he got his leg tangled with forward Cory Conacher. Ray Ban Sunglasses Wholesale USA . Villa has already confirmed his short-term deal and the Daily Mirror reported early Tuesday that Lampard will join him as both build up match fitness ahead of moves to the new Major League Soccer franchise New York City.Orlando, FL (SportsNetwork.com) - Brandon Knight tallied 16 points, nine assists, five rebounds and four steals and the Milwaukee Bucks ended a 10- year winless drought in Orlando with a 115-100 victory over the Magic. Jerryd Bayless led seven Bucks in double figures with 19 points. Khris Middleton and Jared Dudley added 17 apiece and John Henson posted 12 points and 11 rebounds in Milwaukees first win in Orlando since Dec. 29, 2004, a stretch that included 17 straight losses. It was a great game, said Bucks coach Jason Kidd. From start to finish, our guys executed the game plan. They shared the ball. The win is fitting considering the Bucks had won six of seven road games against Eastern Conference opponents coming in, and the Magic were mired in a six-game losing skid. Nikola Vucevic had 17 points and 14 rebounds and Victor Oladipo scored 21 points in the setback. We dont want to keep losing, said Vuceevic.dddddddddddd. We just have to find a way to get out of it. Nobody can help us but ourselves. Orlando also fell to 0-16 this season when allowing 100-plus points at home. Vucevic missed three point-blank looks on the first Magic possession, a sequence that summed up their seventh straight loss. Milwaukee led wire-to- wire and was never challenged, holding a double-digit advantage from the 9:02 mark of the second quarter on. Bayless had 13 in the second, helping Milwaukee stretch its 10-point lead after one to 15 at halftime. Dudley hit a pair of 3s during a 17-3 run late in the third quarter that put the game away. Game Notes Orlando has given up at least 100 points in 11 straight games ... Guard Jorge Gutierrez made his Bucks debut and scored three points in six minutes ... Willie Green and Elfrid Payton scored 16 and 15 points, respectively, for Orlando. Cheap Jerseys China NFL Jerseys China NFL Jerseys Wholesale Discount Basketball Jerseys Cheap NHL Jerseys Authentic Cheap Baseball Jerseys Free Shipping Cheapest College Jerseys Sale Cheap Football Jerseys China Nike NFL Jerseys Canada Wholesale NHL Jerseys From China MLB Jerseys Outlet Canada Wholesale NBA Jerseys Canada Store Cheap Soccer Jerseys China Cheap Authentic Jerseys Canada ' ' '