British men are gearing up to spend a small fortune in presents to mollify their wives and girlfriends for all the time they intend to spend watching this summer's soccer World Cup, a new survey showed.

A Flower Council of Holland survey of 1,000 Britons showed men are prepared to spend 20 pounds ($28.86) a time or slightly more saying sorry for being glued to the gogglebox or heading down to the pub to watch matches with their mates when the tournamentkicks off in South Africa this week.

However, the research also reveals that women, while appreciating expensive gifts, are just as happy with a bunch of flowers (33 percent), followed by chocolates (22 percent) or a good meal (15 percent) and most put the value of expected apologetic booty at just under nine pounds per incident.

"In response to these findings, a clever new iPhone app has been unveiled to make sure our men stay firmlyin the public house rather than the doghouse during the four-week period," the Flower Council of Holland said in a statement.

The free "ScoreAtHome" app helps you find the nearest florist to the pub so you can call through your floral apology while still sipping a pint. It also allows you to check the latest football scores on the go.

(Read by Renee Haines. Renee Haines is a journalist at the China Daily Web site.)

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(Agencies)