I’M A Celebrity bosses enjoyed their best ratings in nearly a decade after they threw the chequebook at football legend Harry Redknapp.
But they will have to break the bank to get the ultimate jungle signing: Roy Keane.
Footie pundit and 2019 campmate Ian Wright, 57, says producers should fork out up to £5million to secure the tough-talking Irishman.
In an exclusive interview, Ian said: “If I was ITV, I’d offer Roy Keane whatever he wants. It would be record numbers of people watching.
“You would never see an audience like it. That man trends when he doesn’t even say anything. He was trending on Twitter last weekend because he wasn’t on TV.
“He loves to be normal and real, and I love to be in that circle with him.
“He is someone who is just a normal bloke. He’s so funny and vibrant when he’s off-camera.
“Give him five million quid! I watch Roy whatever he’s on. He’s that guy. He is the ultimate guest.
“You’d have to get the right people on there with him. You need players who are renowned for not working! Get him in there.
“Harry got 14million viewers a night. Roy would get 25million.”
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‘TV jungle was hardest thing I’ve done in my life’
SkySports pundit Roy, 50, is top of the wishlist for hosts Ant and Dec, who have publicly called on their bosses to throw money at the outspoken star.
Both have said they think Roy would “ruffle a few feathers” in camp if he brought the combative attitude viewers of Sky’s football coverage have come to love.
Instead, another former footie international is rumoured to be heading to North Wales, where the show is being filmed for a second year: England’s John Barnes.
Ian jokes that the former Liverpool winger should take part to shift a few lockdown pounds.
He said: “People had the impression that when the camera goes off, you go to a trailer. It’s ludicrous.
“It was as hard a thing as I’ve done in my life. I’ve never been that hungry, tired and afraid in my life.
“Barnesy needs to do it. He needs to be hungry. He looks like he needs to be hungry for a bit!”
While football figures including John Fashanu, Wayne Bridge, Dennis Wise and Harry have been camp-mates in the jungle, now they are also doing battle on game shows.
Ian and his Match Of The Day colleague Gary Lineker have both been handed the reins to prime-time shows on ITV.
Wrighty’s Moneyball debuts tonight at 6.30pm, while Gary’s Sunday evening show Sitting On A Fortune follows next month.
Ian said: “There’s good money to be won on his show. The one thing we both said when we spoke was how enjoyable it was to do.
“You’re doing something different to moving men around on a pitch and analysing where it went wrong and right.
“We loved being in the moment of excitement. We’re just trying to find a gameshow for (fellow Match Of The Day pundit) Alan Shearer now. It’s got to be something to do with scoring goals, he’d be brilliant.”
The move into Saturday night light entertainment continues a busy TV career for Wrighty, who was capped 33 times for his country and is one of Arsenal’s greatest-ever players.
He has hosted Top Of The Pops, Gladiators, Friends Like These and his own chat show Friday Night’s All Wright, which aired for three series from 1998 to 2000.
And he is a bona fide quiz fan — having been obsessed with them since childhood and throughout his playing career.
He explained: “I’m no quizmaster but I like watching The Chase and Beat The Chasers. I loved Deal Or No Deal and I love Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? It’s got that vibe about it.
“I used to watch University Challenge just to see if I could get one question right. Me and Paul Ince used to watch it when we were on England duty.
“To be fair, he was pretty good. I used to watch it just in case I got near a question. It never happened.”
Ian likened his new show to The Golden Shot, an ITV hit in the late Sixties and Seventies. To win the prize, contestants had to fire a crossbow bolt at a small target.
He said: “I love a game show. I loved The Golden Shot with Bob Monkhouse. I was addicted to it.
“But there’s not been that many like that. If you hit the line, money would come down. But if you missed . . .”
The premise of Ian’s Moneyball is simple enough: Answering a question correctly gives you the chance to fire a ball on to a board, from where contestants can win big money or are sent home penniless.
With each question, the stakes are raised — with a maximum prize of £250,000 up for grabs.
Ian enthuses: “You can win a grand in a minute. That’s the least you’re gonna win.
‘I LOVE A GAME SHOW’
“You could go ten grand, 20 grand, 30 grand, 40 grand. You’re on 100,000 in four questions and, bam!
“I used to love watching game shows where I’d see people like me and my mum winning things.
“I always said, ‘Go and win real money, man’. Sometimes when people would win big money, I’d be like, ‘That’s what it’s about, man! Go and win real money on this show’.
“£3,000? It’s a lot of money. But if you’re gonna go on a TV show, we’re talking proper money. I want people to say, ‘I want to go on that show’. It gets real very quickly.”
But Ian won’t be quitting Match Of The Day any time soon.
He said: “The football means the world to me. I have to do it. But I know I have the capability to do this. And they’ve come up with the perfect format for my personality.
“It’s not me saying, ‘What else you got?’ I’ll do football and I’ll do this. That’s it. I can’t be too far from football. It’s my life.”
- Moneyball is on ITV tonight at 6:30pm.
