West Ham Christmas party pictures

As With Leather informed me of last week, EPL teams apparently have Christmas parties every year. Normally, guys dress up for these things in a style sort of similar to baseball's rookie hazing week. Anyway, here are some pictures of the costumes worn at the West Ham party (theme: sports). I take it the party went well, mainly because no players are currently being accused of rape.

Lee Bowyer trying to hang himself

Freddy Ljungberg as, um, a blind samurai?


Hogan Ephraim as one of the Glasgow Diamonds


James Collins as Sharapova

And just because I can, here's a picture of Peter Crouch from last year's Liverpool Christmas party.


Mo' pics for yer viewing pleasure at The Sun and Chicken Dinner.

-WCK

Pete Rose needs to move to Europe

I'm not quite sure how concerned Europeans are with their athletes using insider information for gambling purposes. But I guess they're a little more cool with it than people here in the States are.

That's because Bolton Wanderers goalkeeper Jussi Jaaskelainen of the EPL supposedly bet money on who his new head coach would be. Not so surprisingly he got it right and won some money. Also not surprising is that it's somewhat sketchy how he picked the right guy.

A little over a week ago, Bolton coach Sammy Lee left after a horrible start to the season. There were obviously questions about who would replace him - along with betting odds on who it would be. One person that wasn't really a popular choice with fans to replace Lee was Gary Megson. Megson was ultimately given 3-1 odds to become Bolton's new coach but wasn't even close to being the favorite.

Despite those odds, and fan hatred, Jaaskelainen supposedly put down £100 a day for 10 days on Megson to become his new head coach. Jaaskelainen also revealed he and his teammates had discussed the managerial speculation that had surrounded the club since Lee's departure.

Megson was named the head coach yesterday. So when it was all said and done, Jaaskelainen won around £3,000, which I realize isn't much for a pro soccer player. Even better is that there are already odds on whether Megson will make it through this season. Hopefully Jaaskelainen doesn't bet on that.

But I can't be the only one that finds it bizarre that athletes can bet on stuff like this when they're pretty likely to have insider information about it. Looks like Pete Rose should start getting involved in soccer.

-WCK

The X-Box is killing soccer players

I know only about 3 of you will care about this, but whatever. For a while now there's been a concern that the English Premier League isn't actually British enough. The majority of players come from foreign countries. I don't really think this should be a surprise considering the EPL is generally regarded as the best soccer league in the world, so naturally it should be filled with the best players from all over the world and not just England.

But some people are fed up with that rubbish. Even though Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp hasn't volunteered to help teach young English kids soccer, he naturally won't blame himself for the kids' lack of skills. No, he prefers to blame everyone's favorite whipping boy - video games.

"It may sound old and corny but when I was growing up, working class lads like me in the east end lived and breathed football. Now I rarely see a kickabout in the park. All I see are the dazzling lights of bedroom windows from the glare of TVs and computers. It seems football cannot compete with an X-Box."

I always love this argument. "In my day, blah, blah, blah." The real reason there were more English soccer players playing in Britain during Redknapp's day is because foreign players didn't go abroad as much to play. It's really that simple. Pele played predominantly in Brazil. If Pele were in his prime today, he'd be in the EPL, probably taking a spot from an English player.

It's the same thing with major league baseball (and other sports). Baseball used to be dominated by fat white guys before the the color barrier was broken. Now players from all over the world come to play here in the states, meaning the best talent in the world is assembled on the field. But that also means we'll have fewer American players.

But if you're like Redknapp and too lazy to see that, just blame video games. Or if you're Homer Simpson, blame Tibor (which is known as hilarious xenophobia).

Besides, I've played a lot of video games in my day, and I've seen a lot of other people play video games as well. And I honestly can't tell you that I've ever said to myself, "You know what, I bet that kid would be a great pro athlete if he just stopped playing video games and picked up a baseball."

-WCK

Chelsea's new manager has a psychotic wife

UPDATE: It seems the pro-Israel lobby has already pulled the video down off of YouTube and there are no other videos of it. So here's a picture instead. All I can say is it's pretty gross watching someone drink their own urine.
For those of you that follow the EPL, then you're well aware that The Special One recently left Chelsea. The new manager, Avram Grant, isn't anything like the megalomanical Mourinho, but his wife sure as hell is.

Grant's wife, Tzofit, has been such a publicity whore in her native Israel that she seriously rivals Paris Hilton. And now she's come to Stamford Bridge.

Here are just a few of the things she did on TV in Israel:

1. Knocked back a whisky tumbler of her own urine live on air to explore whether or not it had any health benefits. (You can see that in the video above - she's the blond one - along with a ton of other random shit)
2. She appeared with a sadomasochist, allowing herself to be spanked and then accepted his invitation to punch him hard in the face.
3. She sat with a male companion in a bath of spaghetti and tomato sauce while wearing a bathing suit, and they toasted each other with red wine.
4. She turned her hand unashamedly to doing raunchy live interviews in a show called Real Time, going to visit reserve soldiers in military outposts and allowing herself to be depicted taking communal showers with them, and even admiring 'girlie' magazines together.

And there's plenty more. Needless to say, she might just be using her husband to further her own career, whatever that is. Or she might just be completely insane. But whatever, she's certain to provide the British tabloids and soccer bloggers with a lot of bizarre stories. At least until another EPL hooker orgy goes south.

-WCK

Your weekly EPL hooker orgy

I'm not the biggest fan of soccer, but I do pay attention to the EPL. Why? Weekly hooker orgies. We just don't get enough of those over here in the states for my liking.

And this week orgy involves probably the biggest name in the EPL - Cristiano Ronaldo.

Manchester United are to going to quiz the star striker after he "invited" five hookers back to his home for a poolside orgy.

You may remember Ronaldo has a bit of a thing for hookers. He was falsely accused of rape by a prostitute after he had sex with her in his suite at London's luxury Sanderson Hotel in 2005.

The five girls travelled 60 miles by taxi from Leeds to Ronaldo’s home on the outskirts of Manchester to party with the players, who were celebrating United’s first victory of the season against the Tottenham Hotspurs this week.

The girls all work through McKenzies Escort agency based in Leeds.

Here's what the web site says about it's commitment to privacy:

“At McKenzies we realise that privacy is of the utmost importance. When making a booking with us, any details you provide are kept in the strictest confidence and are only stored until the end of the booking.”

Whoops.

Ronaldo, a new teammate, and several other guys reportedly all got in on with the hookers until 5am, when they were told to shut up and let Ronaldo sleep. The hookers apparently got plenty of camera phone pictures and videos as well. Those should probably be up on YouTube any day now.

My only question is if Ronaldo celebrated like this after the team's first victory this year, what in God's name did he do when they won last season's championship?

Needless to say, his relationship with Gemma Atkinson is probably on the rocks.

-WCK