SoccerVideoWeird But True

Danish Soccer Player Flashes Undies, UEFA Not Too Happy

by Evan Sporer | 5:50 pm, June 18th, 2012

So stop us if you heard this before: Something very bizarre just happened during Euro Cup 2012. Well, it was quite the odd scene (and fallout) during last week’s Denmark-Portugal match.

It all began when Danish forward Nicklas Bendtner tied things up by scoring his second goal of the game for Denmark. As Bendtner began to celebrate, he lifted up his shirt, and pulled down his shorts, revealing Paddy’s Power undies.

So today, UEFA announced Bendtner would be fined 100,000 euros, and suspended for one match of World Cup qualifying. Makes sense, right? Well, it only gets more bizarre.

In announcing Bendtner’s sanctions, UEFA cited its reasoning behind its actions saying Paddy’s Power is not an official UEFA Cup sponsor.

Per ESPN:

UEFA said its disciplinary panel found the 24-year-old Bendtner guilty of “improper conduct.”

So we’re going to try to do some UEFA analysis here. Revealing your undies in a goal celebration is completely kosher, as long as those undies bare the name of a UEFA licensed sponsor? Excuse me? Is that for real?

The real winner in all of this? Clearly Paddy Power–Ireland’s largest telephone betting service–who issued this statement about the incident:

Paddy Power have come out in support of Bendtner since his punishment was announced, saying: “We are appalled with the severity of Nicklas Bendtner’s fine for displaying Paddy Power on the waistband of his lucky underpants recently. This is a hysterical and deeply cynical move by UEFA dictated by pure commercialism and is a far greater penalty than recent UEFA fines for far more serious incidents. We will be contacting Mr Bendtner to offer him our full support for his appeal.”

Every cloud has a silver lining, however, and Paddy Power also took the opportunity to reveal that they have slashed the odds from 12/1 to 6/1 on UEFA landing another player with a six figure fine for displaying Paddy Power lucky underpants during the remainder of Euro 2012.

This is the best video we could find of the incident, but if you know it’s coming, you can clearly spot the undies: