Micah Richards has revealed he lied to his bosses at CBS Sports - after enjoying 'one of the best nights of my life' at the Super Bowl.
The 58th edition of the annual NFL Championship game took place in Las Vegas this year, with one of the most dramatic endings to a Super Bowl in history taking place.
Kansas City Chiefs prevailed 25-22 over San Francisco 49ers, scoring the winning touchdown with just three seconds left to play in overtime.
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It was the second consecutive Super Bowl win for the Chiefs, whose star quarterback Patrick Mahomes received the MVP award for the third time in his career.
Richards, meanwhile, was in Vegas at the time ahead of punditry duties with CBS on the Monday morning - and stayed out slightly later than planned.
He then revealed what he hilariously decided to tell CBS bosses upon arriving to work on Monday, only three hours after his return.
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Speaking to Gary Lineker on the latest episode of The Rest is Football, Richards set the scene: "I am with [Thierry] Henry, [Kate] Abdo, the [CBS] producers, and everyone knows what Big Meeks is like. I like to get into a little bit of trouble every now and again.
"I just thought, 'Do I keep it professional and stay in, or do I go for a little wander?'
"So it's about 1am in the morning, I go for a little wander down the strip. We're staying in the Virgin Hotels. One of my old mates is staying at the Wynn. I go there and have a few drinks.
He continued: "It's then 4 or 5am in the morning, and I'm thinking to myself, 'We've got media at 11am. What do I do here?' It's only light stuff, we're talking about the Champions League, promoting that and then the Super Bowl.
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"Then we went to a place, I'm not naming no places but wowsers. Gary, do you want me to spell it out for you? The scenery was like never, ever before.
"So I get there in the morning and everyone was like, 'How was your night', this that and the other, 'good sleep?' I was like, 'Yeah, I went to sleep really early, I couldn't find anything to do, I went downstairs to get a drink', and they all thought I stayed in.
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"But they don't know I had one of the best nights of my life. Everyone thought I had jet lag."
Topics: Micah Richards, Champions League, Football, Gary Lineker, Super Bowl, NFL