ASDA failed to help England beat Portugal
Posted by DavidM in England, Michael Owen, Wayne Rooney, World Cup | 4 July 2006
In the run up to the World Cup, every major retailer struck deals with footballers, pundits and anyone remotely connected to the World Cup. Only ASDA though had higher motives than self-promotion and hoped to use their jinx to help England's cause.
ASDA initially went for wonderkid Rooney. However, after the photo-shoot had been done and the publicity material prepared their star signing broke his foot and was thought to be out of the competition.
So ASDA replaced Rooney with Owen, who looked very likely to go to Germany after recovering from a similar foot injury. As we all know though, Owen got crocked against Sweden.
Those canny folk at ASDA, rather than cursing their luck so far, saw this as an opportunity to help our boys.
They approached Luis Figo of Portugal with a sponsorship offer:
We want to sign him up, get him to do some nice publicity shots and then get injured in training. Nothing too serious, just enough to keep him out of the game and increase our chances of winning
Judging by the fact that Figo not only played against England but they went on to beat 10-man England, either the offer wasn't sufficiently attractive, or ASDA's luck has changed for the better.
Nice try though. Personally I'll stick to my voodoo dolls.
