Stars keen to pick all the winners

An array of Irish sporting stars are giving their backing to a sports prediction website which has been established by two Cork GAA stars as a novel method to help clubs raise funds.

Diarmuid Duggan, a Munster SFC medal winner with Cork in 2008, and Noel Furlong, centre-back on the Carrigtwohill team that claimed the Cork SHC title last October, are the brains behind SportsProphet.ie, a concept based on the attempt of participants to correctly predict as many outcomes as possible from 25 major sporting events in a year.

“It’s been fantastic having the support of these sports people,” said Duggan. “Last year we’d Ken Doherty, Peter Canavan, Bernard Brogan, Padraig Harrington, Ruby Walsh, Tommy Walsh, Nicky English, Graham Canty and George Hook involved.

“They did it for fun and it was very entertaining watching them do battle on their leaderboard with Bernard winning in the end. This year we have Special Olympics as our charity partner and whoever wins the Celebrity League, we’ll donate €500 to their local Special Olympics organisation.

“The whole concept is basically to help any club who wants to fundraise. We’re in our third year doing it now. Basically a club member can sell prediction sheets, either manually or online, for €10 or €20 and any club which sells just 200 prediction sheets can make a profit in excess of €3,500.

For further details see www.sportsprophet.ie