Newcastle sponsor dispute ends with egg on Papiss Cisse's face

We all know of those Wonga television adverts that feature those old age puppets (to disarm us) and somehow, by the magic of advertising, makes payday loans some like an appealing prospect.

Payday loan companies have been frowned upon over the last few years as a result of the nature of their business. Wonga are the largest such corporation and Newcastle owner Mike Ashley last year took the controversial decision to have their name branded on the famous black and white of the Magpies' famous strip.

Ahead of Newcastle United's pre-season their star striker Papiss Cisse spoke out on how the Wonga brand, and what it stood for, conflicted with his Muslim beliefs. Cisse, of Senegal, is part of large Muslim contingent at St James Park and despite all of Muslim players not protesting he refused to travel with the team on their pre-season tour of (insert lucrative country where Premier League teams like to travel).

It has been a complex problem for the club as religion and a player''s beliefs are a very sensitive issue and the last thing Ashley was to say the wrong things which would bring some very unwanted bad press which would have compounded the Wonga situation itself.

The stand-off came to end on Thursday, though, as Cisse shot himself in the foot by allowing himself to be snapped in a Tyneside casino earlier this week which made his argument look very weak indeed.

The conclusion to the Cisse/Wonga is one of the funnier stories to have emerged from the summer and you have to question Cisse's original motivation for making a protest over his team's sponsors.

Was it the player wanting just a little extra time off in the summer? Putting off getting back to hard work after a gruelling season? Free up some extra time to hit Newcastle's casinos?

Remember, too, that the sponsorship deal was announced a year ago which begs another question; why did Cisse wait until now to kick up a fuss?

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