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Press Release on UK
Fantasy Football on 11
Aug 2006
Fantasy
Football - over £1 Million on offer for 2006/07!
Fantasy
Football, celebrating its 15th birthday in the UK this year, is
going from strength to strength with over £1.25 million up for grabs in
major Fantasy Football games based on the 2006/07 Premier League season.
There are now more games than ever with a wide variety of formats for
Fantasy Football fans to choose from.
Few
would have thought that when Fantasy Football first hit the UK market in
1991 its popularity would have soared as dramatically as it has, with
millions of people across the world rising to the challenge. Those who
have reached the pinnacle have found Fantasy Football life-changing thanks
to the huge cash prizes – up to £125,000 – on offer.
Although
the Internet has made a dramatic improvement to most games, it is the
major UK newspapers that continue to get behind the games. The Telegraph,
Times, Mail, Mirror, Sun, Star and Metro all offer Premier League games
with prize money ranging from £40,000 to £300,000. As well as entering
online you can still register teams for some games via mail or premium
rate telephone. Nearly all games offer a free mini-league facility with
which to challenge your friends, family and work-mates.
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Fantasy
Football Services run by FISO - Community
Forum and English
Premiership Injury Table
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The
success of the games has led to tough competition between papers to
attract more players and there is a wide range to choose from. The experts
behind www.FISO.co.uk, the popular fantasy sports community website, have
compiled a list of the leading games based on feedback from their users
(based on prizes, reliability and overall usability). These are:
1)
Daily Mirror You The Manager
www.youthemanager.co.uk
Prize
Fund: £275,000
Key
points: Easy to play, low maintenance, four transfer windows, good
reliability of website, helpful support staff.
2)
Daily Telegraph Fantasy Football
www.telegraphfantasyfootball.co.uk
Prize
Fund: £100,000
Key
points: Traditionally the leading game, interactive with 30 transfers over
season, popular for office leagues, subjective man of the match scoring.
3)
The Sun's Dream Team
www.dreamteamfc.com
Prize
Fund: £300,000
Key
Points: Highest number of entries, very low maintenance, two transfer
windows, subjective player performance scoring.
4)
Fantasy League
www.fantasyleague.com
Prize
Fund: £75,000
Key
points: Online only, squad based, one of the original UK games, helpful
support staff.
The
popularity of the FISO Forum confirms that Fantasy Football is here to
stay and continuing to grow.
"Every
year we are getting more users and posts on the forum than ever before,”
said Chris King, who runs www.FISO.co.uk.
"With
the World Cup and build up to the new Premier League season, the last few
weeks have been our busiest ever. We've had over 12,000 users register for
our community forum in the past 10 months, making over 200,000 posts in
that period and are on target for 2 million page views this month alone
which is our best yet. The unrivalled prize money now on offer is
encouraging more and more professional gamblers and regular football fans
to enter teams."
The
countdown for this year’s Premiership Fantasy Football games is on as
entrants strive to pick their winning teams before kick off on 19 August.
--Ends--
Notes
for Editors.
1.
For more information contact FISO Ltd.
2.
Brief history of Fantasy Football in the UK:
Since
its introduction to the UK in 1991 the concept has gone through several
stages to ensure its continued popularity. It started with specialist
books for groups of friends or colleagues to play in auction leagues (only
one team in the group could have each player, such as Ian Rush) before
being picked up by the newspapers as a great promotional and database
building tool in the mid 1990's.
David
Baddiel and Frank Skinner jumped on the band wagon with their
"Fantasy League ™" TV programme which topped the ratings
during Euro 96. Many thought this might have been the peak but the advent
of the Internet provided fantasy sports with an incredible shot in the arm
that it has not looked back from.
3.
www.FISO.co.uk began in 2000 and is a
focal point for fantasy sports players. This week 5 years ago, FISO
launched a forum for the fantasy sports community, which from word of
mouth has grown from strength to strength and is approaching 500,000
articles posted. The FISO Forum is where thousands of like-minded people
meet online each week to discuss a wide range of subjects, including
surprisingly Fantasy Football!
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