A third-division German football team has decided that they should change the location of their training camp this winter after discovering that they had booked in to the same hotel as 400 Russian models who were attending a beauty pageant.
While the Premier League calendar actually gets busier at Christmas and New Year's, the rest of Europe takes a bit of a break in the middle of the season to have a rest, and a lot of teams head off to sunnier climes to get some warm weather training in and improve their fitness. That's what MSV Duisburg had in mind when they booked a trip to Turkey to stay at the Royal Holiday Palace hotel in the resort of Antalya Lara.
However, they were forced to make some last-minute alterations to their schedule after learning that the Royal Holiday Palace would also be hosting a beauty pageant featuring 400 Russian models, and will now instead be based in the Hotel Royal Wings instead, a few kilometres away.
In a statement on their website, the Zebras (as they're known) said that they wanted to "calmly prepare" for the next stage of the season and the hotel was almost certain to be overcrowded, which was the main reason that they would not be bringing their squad of players to stay there. Nothing to do with all those models running around the place...
Gino Lettieri and his side, who are currently in the third tier of the German game, will still get their warm weather fixtures against Royal White Star from Belgium and fellow German side SG Sonnenhof Großaspach, and we're sure that they'll be fully focused on the football.
Via The Irish Mirror. Main pic via RoyalHolidayPalace.com
