Former Liverpool Winger sacked after playing poker
Footballer Albert Riera has been let go from Serie A club Udinese after missing a match to play poker instead.
Riera is a former Spanish international player, who has also played for Liverpool and Manchester City. He chose to play in a tournament in Slovenia instead of show up for his club's match against Chievo on November 23.
He won £3,000 for his second place finish in the E20livepoker - DSP Rewind, but now finds himself without a club.
He insists he parted ways with club, however, for 'mutual footballing reasons'. His contract termination may also be in no small part due to the fact that he publically tweeted that Udinese was the 'worst club he has played for'.
Catching the poker bug
He is not the first top flight footballer to catch the poker bug. Real Madrid star Ronaldo is known to play the game, and recently Brazilian superstar Neymar admitted that he chose to play online poker instead of watching Brazil's 7-1 thrashing in the World Cup.
Other former football stars who have gone on to make their name in poker include (The other) Ronaldo, Teddy Sheringham, Gerard Pique and Tony Cascarino.
He is also not the only person to lose their job over poker last month. Navy commander Timothy Giardina lost his job after it was discovered he had taken fake poker chips into his local card room.
Do you think poker had anything to do with his sacking? Let us know in the comments:
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