After Neymar posted a selfie playing poker with friends, Lee Davy casts his view on what he constitutes as a cracking six-max table chocked full of star athletes.
“I don’t want to watch this shit. Let’s go and play poker.”
According to the Spanish news outlet Marca, those are the words of the Brazilian star Neymar after Andre Schurrle had rammed home Germany’s seventh goal in that iconic Semi Final just a few weeks ago.
A selfie of the Brazilian star, playing poker with friends, later surfaced on his Instagram account and I am not sure the club doctor will be too thrilled to hear that Neymar is choosing to play poker in a bid to clear up his broken back?
I guess when you wear golden football boots you can pretty much do anything you like?
Perhaps, the young star could take a few lessons from his teammate Luis Suarez. The former Liverpool star, and often devourer of human flesh, has signed for the Catalan giants in a £75 million deal that makes him the third most expensive footballer in the history of the game.
That means next year anybody facing Barcelona will have the front three of Neymar, Suarez and Lionel Messi running at them.
Heaven forbid.
888Poker are looking for a new international sports star after Luis Suarez lost his footing and accidentally dropped his incisors into the shoulder of the Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini during the World Cup.
So who could fill the void so quickly left by the hungry Uruguayan?
Here are five suggestions to join Neymar in the six-max cash game that goes on inside my head.
Seat 1: Tiger Woods
Each year Tiger Woods puts away the clubs for a game of poker with the World Poker Tour’s finest. The Annual Tiger Jam is a weekend of fun and frolics designed to raise funds for the Tiger Woods Foundation and his supporters generally raise around $1 million each year.
Seat 2: Serena Williams
With 17 Grand Slam titles in her trophy room, and over $50 million in prize money earned over her amazing career, Serena Williams is one of the most successful athletes the world has ever seen. But I have to be honest. I have only chosen her because I have a crush and have a certain fantasy where she locks me into a steely-eyed poker stare down.
Seat 3: Michael Phelps
I think the greatest Olympian of all time would be a great poster boy for poker. He is friendly with the likes of the Jeff Gross and Antonio Esfandiari and has already taken his seat in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA), proving he knows his way around the felt.
Seat 4: Floyd Mayweather
You can’t have a celebrity poker game without the man known as Money sitting at the table. I’m just not quite sure where we would seat his entourage though, but there again, we manage when Michael Mizrachi comes to Europe. Mayweather regularly makes sports betting wagers in the seven-figure region, making him a absolute shoe-in for a life in poker.
Seat 5: Zlatan Ibrahimovic
The Swedish egomaniac is perfectly suited for a life in poker. The man, who said that the World Cup was not worth watching because he wasn’t in it, would be an absolute revelation, in a game that is crying out for some fresh bad blood. His quotes would also make Devilfish look like Mickey Petersen. Talking in response to a female reporter who questioned his sexuality he said, “Come to my house and you’ll see if I’m gay. And bring your sister.” And when asked what he was going buy his girlfriend for her birthday he responded, “Nothing, she already has Zlatan.”
So that’s my six max table of athletes, what would yours be?
