Major Financial Boost For New Zealand Football

Major Financial Boost For New Zealand Football

New Zealand Football will be over half a million dollars better off following the Football World Cup in South Africa.

That is the amount that the New Zealand TAB will send to the national body as a percentage of turnover and profit from the month-long tournament.

"This is a fantastic result", said Frank Van Hattum, Chairman of New Zealand Football. The proceeds, according to Van Hattum, will be channelled into "grassroots football" throughout the country.

TAB football bookie Gary Pearn was delighted with the interest shown by New Zealand punters throughout the tournament. "There's no doubt that having the All Whites at the World Cup created tremendous interest and that resulted in 30,000 new TAB accounts being opened."

Pearn says that Spain were always one of the favoured teams at the Cup but that support ebbed somewhat with their early loss to Switzeland. However, confidence was regained as they found form in the latter stages of the tournament. "Some of our bigger punters were encouraged enough by their semi final win over Germany to back them in the final to win inside the 90 minutes, however that didn't happen". Several of the bigger bets that went astray in the final were the $100,000 on Spain at $2.10 and another $50,000 at $2.00. Both of those bets were to win in normal time.

ENDS

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