[The Fox]

- £10,000 CHARITY PAYDAY FOR FIRST COMMERCIAL GOAL CELEBRATION –

Forget Ravanelli’s shirt over the head, the Klinsmann dive and Crouch’s ‘robot’ dance, there’s a new footballing-craze about to hit the UK. The race is on for Premier League stars to claim a five-figure payment to the charity of their choice, for performing the world’s first commercial goal celebration.

Betfair, the UK’s biggest online betting company, has put up the unique prize to publicise the launch of TaiKai, its new football prediction game, which is a cross between the office sweepstake and the traditional wager. The first Premier League footballer to ‘DO THE TAIKAI’, a martial arts inspired dance move that reflects the Far Eastern origin of the product’s name, will instantly be awarded the £10,000 prize and have the kudos of kicking off the latest goal celebration mania.

Every Premier League footballer, agent and club has been sent a step-by-step guide to ‘DO THE TAIKAI’, a simple celebration choreographed by Cascade Dance, a leading London dance studio. It begins with the Crane position - made famous in the Karate Kid movies - and finishes with a series of karate chops to spell out the T and K of TaiKai.

Andy Lulham of Betfair said: “There have been some great spontaneous goal celebrations in the past, but we’re hoping the charity incentive we’ve put up for the first player to ‘DO THE TAIKAI’ will help us secure the world’s first in-game advert. We’ve already had reports of players practising the moves in training so we’re pretty confident someone will take us up on the offer – all they need to do now is hit the back of the net and start dancing.”
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