ESPN’s Craig Burley loses bet, gets (suspiciously fake) Fernando Torres tattoo

In the 1990s, Craig Burley was a regular in the Chelsea midfield, but now he’s a regular on the ESPN sofa, where he specialises in saying obtuse and mildly controversial things. One such mildly controversial thing was a bet that Fernando Torres would fail to score in Atletico Madrid’s Copa del Rey tie against Real Madrid at the Bernabeu last week. If Nando did score, Burley said he would get a tattoo of his pretty little Spanish face.

Of course, it then transpired that Torres bagged a goal in both halves, forcing Burley to make some ink-based enquiries.

A tattoo parlour in Hartford Connecticut answered Burley’s call, and ESPN filmed the embarrassed Scot getting El Nino and his impossibly angular cheekbones permanently etched onto his skin. However, the eagle-eyed will notice that the video doesn’t actually show the tattoo machine making contact with his skin, nor does the finished result show any of the soreness or swelling that a genuine inking would produce. Also, it looks a bit like a drawing. 

Perhaps it is real, perhaps it isn’t. The only logical next step is for Fernando Torres to get Craig Burley’s toothless grin tattooed on his arm.

One comment

  1. Daniel says:

    I’m glad someone else was able to spot it was fake…well done sir. I’m sure there were many but I saw a ton of folks reacting to it like it was real after the fact…

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