LONDON: In a move almost as
bizarre as the incident itself, bookmakers William Hill will pay out on
Pedro Mendes's controversial "goal" in Tuesday's 0-0 draw between
Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.
In the last minute of the Premier
League match at Old Trafford, with the score at 0-0, the midfielder's
45-metre shot was fumbled by United goalkeeper Roy Carroll before
bouncing at least a metre over the goalline.
Neither referee Mark Clattenburg nor linesman Ray Lewis saw the incident clearly and they failed to signal the goal.
Hill's said they would honour the
bets of those punters who backed Mendes at 20-1 to score the first goal
and at any time in the match at 11-2.
William Hill spokesman Graham
Sharpe said on Wednesday: "This is probably the most bizarre incident
ever to occur in the Premier League and we feel that anyone who bet on
Mendes to score first, or to score at all, is entitled to feel hard
done by because clearly both the referee and linesman were unsighted by
a one in a million fluke situation."
Mendes, who joined Spurs from
Porto at the start of the season, scored his first goal for Spurs in
the 5-2 win over Everton on Saturday. - Reuters
