BOOKMAKERS across the country are doing their best to cash in on this summer’s Fifa World Cup in South Africa by offering specials markets and concessions.

As for innovative markets, plenty of bookies are taking bets on teams’ stage of elimination and each team’s top goalscorer. Paddy Power also have a market on the referee chosen by Fifa to preside over this year’s World Cup final, which will take place on 11 July at Soccer City.

Swiss referee Massimo Busacca has been chalked up as the 7/2 favourite, and perhaps is significant that he has not been handed an early game in the competition. In his career to date the 41-year-old has taken charge of the 2007 UEFA Cup Final and last year’s Champions League Final between Manchester United and Barcelona. In Euro 2008 Busacca was given the semi-final between Germany and Turkey.

It goes without saying that Busacca will be immediately ruled out of the running if his native country Switzerland make the final, but that looks unlikely at 100/1 with Totesport.

Jorge Larrionda is well-known for dishing out red cards, but he is next in the referee betting at 9/2. He was in charge when the USA famously beat Spain 2-0 in last year’s Confederations Cup semi-final, but American will remember Larrionda for giving out three red cards in the 2006 World Cup match between the USA and Italy.

Benito Archundia could have a chance at 6/1, especially considering he was given a total of five matches at the last World Cup.

Roberto Rosetti is fluent in three languages and is a 15/2 chance in the betting. The Italian ref is best know for taking charge of the Euro 2008 final between Germany and Spain, so perhaps the authorities will want to give someone else the chance.

Englishman Howard Webb is at 16/1, but the fact that he reffed this year’s Champions League final could count against him. Webb has been handed an intriguing clash between Spain and Switzerland in the first round of matches, and he is 2/1 to award two or more penalties during the World Cup finals. It is 11/10 that he does not award any red cards in South Africa.

Paddy Power are giving punters £100 when they bet £50 over the phone on the World Cup. Bet 365 will refund your outright bets if your chosen team gets knocked out on penalties. 888sport are refunding losing bets up to £20 and Stan James are sticking their necks out by refunding bets up to £250 if favourites Spain win the World Cup in South Africa.

bookies.com is your best bet for comparing 2010 World Cup odds this summer.

2010 World Cup Outright Winner Betting

2010 World Cup Golden Boot Betting

2010 World Cup Outright First Winner Ever Betting

It is not exactly breaking news when the richest football club in the world gets linked with a hot prospect, but the Yoann Gourcuff rumour may have some substance to it. The 23 year old French international is one of Lyon’s top priorities this summer, but Manchester City’s offer may prove too attractive to resist for the talented midfielder.

Last year’s French Player of the Year has had a disappointing season with Bordeaux, who only managed to finish 6th in the league. The departure of coach Laurent Blanc and a lack of European football next season means that Gourcuff will be desperate to find a new club this summer to showcase his talents.

City will not be playing Champions League football next season, but at the moment it looks like they are the only club willing to put the required €26m on the table. Roberto Mancini’s side are yet to make a concrete bid for the playmaker, but I bet they will before the 2010 World Cup. France are 20/1 with Sky Bet to win the competition, but even if Gourcuff plays a couple of decent matches in the competition against the top sides, he could attract further attention in the transfer market.

The President of Bordeaux, Jean-Louis Triaud, would like Gourcuff to stay with his club, but he admits that he is used to ‘letting talented players go’.

Man City are 7/1 with Corals to win the EPL title in 2011, but expect to see those odds tumble after they sign some big names this summer. For example in 2008 when City signed Robinho, punters could not get enough of City and started backing The Citizens in all sorts of markets.

Another big-money move this summer could be Lille’s Eden Hazard. The 19 year old has just been voted as the best young player in Ligue 1 for the second season running, and he could be set for a move. Unsurprisingly, Lyon are interested, but Barcelona have already made a €30m offer for the Belgian international. Zinedine Zidane has also pleaded with Real Madrid to make an offer for Hazard.

bookies.com is your best bet for comparing football betting odds this summer.

2010 Fifa World Cup Betting Odds

Premier League 2010/2011 Winner Betting Odds

The Daily Mirror has today broken the story that Hammers manager Gianfranco Zola is set to throw in the towel this summer. Zola is reportedly prepared to kiss goodbye to his £1.8 million annual salary after a torrid year at the helm of the West Ham battleship.

The Hammers are now safe from relegation, but with two games remaining this season, they are booked for a disappointing position near the foot of the table. Co-owner David Sullivan is prepared to listen to offers for his players, but insists that the club will not be selling star midfielder Scott Parker this summer.

So if Zola is busy backing his bags for Sardinia as we speak, then there is no better time to get stuck into the betting odds for the next West Ham manager. The club could make a move for a manager soon, so it would be advisable to get your bet on sooner rather than later.

Glenn Hoddle is Paddy Power’s 9/4 favourite, but he is as short as 5/6 with Skybet for the job. Hoddle was linked with Leeds United in 2006, but has recently spent his time forming the Glenn Hoddle Academy in Spain. The ex-England coach has the pedigree to manage a London club once again, but punters may be tempted to search for someone at bigger odds.

Next in the betting is Steve McClaren at 4s, who is on the verge of securing the Dutch Eredivisie with FC Twente.

Avram Grant has been heroic in leading Portsmouth to the FA Cup final, and is rated as a 6/1 chance. Other possibles are Mark Hughes at 15/2, and Slaven Bilic, who has been backed into odds of 10/1. Backers of Bilic are clearly latching onto his West Ham connection, as he played for the club in 1996/7. Another possible factor for the incoming money is that Bilic failed to lead Croatia to this year’s Word Cup finals in South Africa.

At even bigger odds, Jose Mourinho and Teddy Sheringham are given no chance at 100/1.

bookies.com is your best bet for comparing football betting odds.

Next Permanent West Ham manager betting odds

Next Liverpool manager betting odds

Next Man U manager betting odds

Don’t worry punters, this is one betting heat that will not take a lot of solving.

Wayne Rooney is 1/16 (bet £160 to win £10 profit) with Skybet to be named as the 2009/2010 PFA Players’ Player of the Year, and it is almost impossible to bet against him. Carlos Tevez is the next in the betting at 10/1, whilst Didier Drogba and Cesc Fabregas are also nominated for the prestigious end of season award.

Drogba is 22/1 with Skybet, and he is only one goal behind Rooney in the EPL goalscoring charts. The ‘Drog’ has had an erratic season by his standards, but is the token nomination from a Chelsea side who now look nailed-on for the title. Meanwhile Fabregas is the 41/1 outsider of the nominees, but is currently on the sidelines. Fernando Torres is a bit unlucky to miss out on a nomination, but his team-mate Steven Gerrard can have no complaints. 

Nemanja Vidic was a warm order for the award this time last year, so perhaps punters should throw caution to the wind. The Vidic gamble was foiled by Ryan Giggs, who went on to complete a double with the 2009 BBC Sports Personality of the Year. 

The last three awards have all gone to Manchester United players, which seems like an extremely good omen for Rooney backers. Gerrard was the last English winner of the award in 2006, and Rooney has twice won the PFA Young Player of the Year award before in his career.

Rooney is the 11/10 favourite to also be Top Goalscorer, but he may be rested for a handful of games before the World Cup. In which case the 6/5 about Drogba may be tempting.

Grand National winning jockey Tony McCoy is currently disputing favouritism with Wayne Rooney at 4/1 at the head of the BBC SPOTY betting.

bookies.com is your best bet for comparing odds on a wide range of betting markets.

PFA Player of the Year 2010 Betting

Top Goalscorer Betting

BBC SPOTY 2010 Betting

Marseille appear to have the French Ligue 1 title in their grasp after beating Nice 4-1 last night at the Velodrome, and they are now the hot favourites at 4/6 with Totesport.

Meanwhile Lyon are out to 14/1 with Boylesports after a disappointing 1-1 draw at home to Lille. Today the press are not talking about the sendings off of Ricardo Costa and Maxime Gonalons in the match, but instead about a small sponsor that made its way onto the left arm of the Lyon shirts on Sunday afternoon.

OL President Jean-Michel Aulas is no stranger to French league controversy, and his club now faces a hefty fine for sending his team out to play in ‘illegal shirts’. Lyon were not permitted by the league to sport their seasonal sponsor Betclic on their shirts at the beginning of the 2009/10 campaign, because online betting was illegal in France at the time. However the Betclic shirts could be worn away from home in Lyon’s Champions league matches, because those matches were not regulated by the French authorities.

On April 6 the French Parliament agreed to finally open up the French online betting markets, to provide limited competition for the French gambling monopoly Française des Jeux (FDJ). Lyon thought the tide had turned in their favour, but evidently not…

The subtle Betclic advert on the sleeve (see below) apparently still breaks Article 316, paragraph 14 of the league rules, which means that the Competition Commission is bound to fine Lyon the mandatory €15000 when they convene next Wednesday.

Aulas will fight hard for his corner, and he will certainly mention that the French rugby side Biarritz were able to wear the same sponsor on their shirts the preceding night. He will also want his side to wear the shirt for the next UCL clash against Bayern Munich.

€15,000 is small change for Lyon who paid its players €100,000 each for qualifying for the Champions league semi-finals against Bordeaux just last week. All the talk of Betclic can only be beneficial publicity for the online gambling operator, just as Bwin benefited when they got caught up in a similar tussle a couple of seasons back.

bookies.com is your best bet for comparing football odds between bookmakers – including Betclic.

Hull City are now a best-priced 8/11 shot for relegation with Corals after sacking manager Phil Brown yesterday. Hull lost again at the weekend, this time to Arsenal, and are 3 points adrift from safety.

In the same relegation market, Burnley look like 2/9 certainties to me, whilst Wolves cannot be discounted at 9/4.

Unfortunately for Hull fans, the betting on the next Hull manager was suspended late last night following a number of market moves.

WIlliam Hill had Alan Curbishley as their even-money favourite, and also offered 4/7 about Phil Brown being the last Premier League manager to go this season.

Meanwhile Bet365 took a completely different view on the market, as they had installed Paul Jewell as their 3/1 market leader. The logic behind that one was that Hull chairman Adam Pearson has worked with Jewell before. However, Jewell insists that he hasn’t had any contact with Hull.

Remarkable, Skybet’s jolly was Gary Megson, who was cut yesterday into 11/4 from earlier odds of 4/1. Steve Coppell was weak in the Skybet market, as he drifted out to 5s. The last news was that Iain Dowie was well-backed, in from generous odds of 14/1.

This morning’s news is that Terry Venables and Mark Hughes are also in the frame for the Hull job! Betting has been suspended, but should a market re-open in the near future, shouldn’t the bookies go 10/1 the field?

Check out bookies.com to compare odds across a range of football betting markets:

Premier League Winner Betting

Premier League Relegation Betting

Premier League Top Goalscorer Betting

Rio Ferdinand has certainly not been a regular fixture in defence for Manchester United, yet he has nevertheless been handed the England captaincy from Fabio Capello.

Ferdinand is suffering from a back injury, which isn’t simply disappear in a matter of weeks like any common injury. Sir Alex Ferguson decided not to risk him in this week’s clash against West Ham, and he has already been ruled out of this weekend’s Carling Cup Final. United are the 4/9 favourites to lift the trophy instead of Aston Villa, and are expected to cope once again without Rio.

And so we come to the betting on England’s World Cup Captain, a market that will be settled when England kick off against USA. Rio is unsurprisingly the 1/6 favourite with William Hill, but the nature of his injury must put punters off from taking such a short price about the supposed ‘good thing’ in the market. I very much doubt that Capello would start Ferdinand at the back against USA if he wasn’t feeling 100%.

The layers on Betfair offer slightly more generous odds of 1/3 on Rio. If you are willing to play the bookmaker and lay those odds, you are effectively backing the field at 3/1.

In Rio’s absence, Steven Gerrard will be captain, as he has already been named as the vice-captain. Hills go 9/2 that he leads England out against the USA, which has to be the value bet at this stage of the season. He drifted right out to 9/1 from even money on the exhange, but has now been halved in price. Also bear in mind that Gerrard’s Champions League campaign has been cut short, and that his beloved Liverpool will be looking to bank a top-four spot in the domestic league rather than lifting the Europa League.

It would take a horrendous run of injuries for John Terry to win back the captaincy at 20/1, and 25/1 Beckham is more likely to start on the bench. Becks is 1/5 with Bet365 to make the squad this summer, which looks like a pretty safe bet to me.

Bookies.com is your best bet for comparing football odds:

World Cup 2010 Betting Odds

England Captain vs USA Betting

England Squad Betting

Elsewhere Lyon take on Anderlecht, FC Timisoara take on VFB Stuttgart, Sporting meet Fiorentina and Panathinaikos will play Atletico Madrid. Stuttgart will be very pleased with their draw; there were some dangerous teams in the unseeded category and they have picked up by far the weakest team in the form of the Romanian Timisoara.

Other match ups are a bit tighter, although Atletico Madrid will fancy their chances against Greek counterparts Panathinaikos, whilst Anderlecht who are 1000/1 on Betfair to win the Champions league may struggle against Lyon.

The draw hasn’t had a huge effect on the Champions League outright betting although Celtic have been pushed out to 250/1 with the bookies after their draw against Arsenal. Barcelona remain joint 5/1 favourites with Real Madrid followed by a trio of English sides in the form of Chelsea 7/1, Man U 7/1 and Liverpool at 10/1. Arsenal meanwhile remain at 16/1 to win the Champions league despite the tough draw against Celtic.

You can see all the Champions League odds here.

However, where this may be a realistic prospect for the Baggies, for the Magpies it is quite a different matter. The problems that sent Newcastle down last season, rather than being dispelled over the summer have instead escalated. Owner Mike Ashley has been desperately trying to sell the club whilst both players as well as manager, Chris Hughton, are uncertain of their future at the club.

The club have been inefficient at selling their players which has meant that the club’s parachute payments will be spent on wages rather than restructuring to meet the demands of the Championship. The team have embarrassed themselves on the pitch in pre season matches, losing to Leyton Orient 6-1 whilst when playing Huddersfield the entire team were involved in a twenty man brawl.

There will be no incentive for the Newcastle players to perform on Saturday. Caretaker manager, Chris Hughton, has been assured that his position is only temporary and he will therefore have great difficulty controlling the unsettled players in the dressing room.

Meanwhile, West Brom are in a far more secure position, they have a permanent manager in the form of Roberto Di Matteo who has taken over from Tony Mowbray. They have also brought in a new striker in the form of Simon Cox, who scored 32 goals for Swindon Town last season. The team will be well prepared for the start of this season and should be heavy favourites to beat a shambolic Newcastle side.

However, West Brom, despite hosting the fixture at the Hawthorns this weekend are 13/10 to win the game. This seems a very generous price as they should really be odds on playing at home against Newcastle on the first day of the season. Newcastle meanwhile are 5/2 and the draw is marked up at 12/5. Check out all the different markets on the game here or take a look at the odds of all of this weekends Championship games here.

It’s often useful to look back through the pre-season betting to see what value you could have had if your crystal ball had been working at the start of August 2008. Seeing where the winners came from – and what the odds were – often helps clarify betting strategies for future seasons.

It was no great surprise to anyone that the Premiership favourites, Manchester United, won the title again, which was a 6-4 chance at the start of the season. You could have had odds of 12-1 that Manchester United finished top with Liverpool second while the MU-Liverpool-Chelsea tricast was a 18-1 shot, which looks pretty generous now.

Everton were 6-1 to win the ‘without the top four’ market, while in the top six market you could back Everton at 9-4 and Villa at 12-5, which in retrospect look fat prices for something that in retrospect was fairly predictable.

In the relegation market no team that went down was odds-on to be relegated; West Brom could have been backed at 6-5, Middlesborough at 9-1 and Newcastle at 22-1. There is a strong lesson to most punters there – betting the short price teams for the drop in the Premiership is a fast way to go broke. West Brom were 15-2 to finish bottom, which again shows why swerving the obvious choices of Stoke and Hull was the shrewd move.

The same is usually true of the top goalscorer market. Nicolas Anelka won the Golden Boot with 19 goals – he was a 25-1 shot at the start of the season. In second was Cristiano Ronaldo on 18 goals, who was offered at 7-1, which Steven Gerrard’s 16 goals took third place; he was a 66-1 shot pre-season.

Bookies also offer handicap markets in which clubs are given various points starts over Manchester United and Fulham and Stoke topped the tables, depending on which bookie you bet with. In order, the top five were Fulham, Stoke, Liverpool, Manchester United, Hull, Everton, Wigan and West Ham. These markets are almost always won by a team that the bookies expect to be hovering in or around the relegation zone who outperform all expectations.