Ref flips the bird at lairy fans

Referee Massimo Busacca, the man tasked with overseeing Man United’s schooling at the hands of Barcelona in last year’s Champions League final, was embroiled in sweary scandal this weekend after pointing with the wrong finger during a Swiss Cup game between third division minnows FC Baden and Swiss Super League runners-up, Young Boys (who infamously play at the lap dance-hosting Wankdorf.)

Home team Baden took a shock lead after nine minutes, which set off a mini pitch invasion and  prompted Busacca, whose history of refereeing incidents on Wikipedia reads like an instruction manual on ‘how to lose friends and enrage people’, to order a loudspeaker announcement for fans to stop scaling the fences.

The home of Young Boys falls foul of rude semantics

In a bid to inject a little life into a neutral tournament in a neutral country, Oirish bookmakers Paddy Power have put up some tongue-in-cheek novelty markets. Currently, you can get 15/8 on Cristiano Ronaldo crying in the quarter-finals, and 100/1 on the Portuguese hiring a transsexual prostitute before missing a penalty.

Yet their best effort is entitled ‘First player to be pulled off at the Wankdorf Stadium?’ These days, the stadium is technically called Stade de Suisse, but the opportunity to make Ruud van Nistelrooy (favourite at 11/2) the victim of a sexually-charged pun is simply too good to pass up. His name is ‘Ruud’, which sounds like ‘rude’ - get it? Yeah, you get it.

To see Paddy Power’s Euro 2008 specials market and to receive a free £10 bet, click here.

Spoilsport Update: Rather coyly, they have renamed the Wankdorf market ‘First player to be subbed in Italy/ Holland’. Boooo.