A whimsical look back at the antics of Wayne Shaw, 46 years old and weighing in at 23 stones, who has paid dearly for scoffing a liue during the Sutton United 5th round FA Cup tie against Arsenal on Feb 20 …
As the world now knows, Sutton United’s goalie Wayne Shaw’s well-fed form will no longer be a feature of the club’s games, since he officially resigned over a betting scandal that involved eating a pie at half-time during the FA Cup match against Arsenal.
Sutton’s team sponsor Sun Bets, who controversially replaced regular sponsors Green Go Waste, posted the pie-eating bet that potentially put an end Shaw’s football career. What began as some harmless fun became a financially devastating move for Sun Bet, who reportedly paid out over £10,000 to an unidentified winner.
The betting company offered 8 to 1 odds against Shaw eating a pie on the bench, so when he was filmed doing so the UK Gambling Association along with the FA immediately became involved.
Footballers are banned from placing bets on matches and the savory snack spun into a legal investigation in minutes.
The FA is considering taking action after Shaw was captured eating a pie towards the end of Monday night’s fifth round tie at Gander Green Lane, with the manager, Paul Doswell, confirming on Tuesday that the 45-year-old had agreed to offer his resignation as a result.
Despite the suspicion about Sun Bet, it is a well-known betting organisation and among of the best online gambling platforms for UK players on the web. It isn’t the bet itself that was questionable, but the fact that Shaw chose to eat the pie at halftime while knowing the stakes in advance.
No conclusions have been drawn just yet on whether Shaw had anything to gain from this, but he did admit that he knew about the 8 to 1 odds, and the footballer allegedly did it to give the media something to talk about according to The Guardian – and that it did.
“A few of the lads said to me earlier on, ‘What is going on with the 8-1 about eating a pie?’,” the keeper said. “I said, ‘I don’t know, I’ve eaten nothing all day, so I might give it a go later on. I thought I would give them a bit of banter and let’s do it. All the subs were on and we were 2-0 down.”
The controversy surrounding the events was enough to compel Shaw to resign, and with the investigation still underway, the results will determine if Shaw will ever bounce back after his truly unsavoury brush with the football authorities.