"I'm sick of people taking the mickey out of Sepp
Blatter for saying female footballers should wear tighter shorts."
"Am I imagining this or weren't there also some German politicians
who reckoned the men should spend more time with their tops
off?"
Geoffrey Damon.
There certainly were Geoffrey. Green party MPs Evelin
Schoenhut-Keil and Margareta Wolf got rather carried away after
seeing Cristiano Ronaldo booked for baring his torso after scoring
during Euro 2004, and ended up launching a national campaign to
make it legal for players to take off their shirts.
In an open letter to the German Football Association, the pair
wrote: "Get rid of the yellow card and instead let players show
their athletic torsos. We can't understand how the voluntary
showing of a gorgeous male chest can be objectionable. They
subsequently also threw their weight behind a petition to Fifa
demanding much the same thing but, unsurprisingly, were completely
ignored by both bodies. None of which, in case you were in doubt,
goes any way towards justifying your apparent affection for Mr
Blatter.
