Did German MPs really encourage footballers to go topless?

Paolo Bandini
Wednesday May 30, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Calm down ladies ... Photograph: Andreu Dalmau/EPA

"I'm sick of people taking the mickey out of Sepp Blatter for saying female footballers should wear tighter shorts," rants Geoffrey Damon. "Am I imagining this or weren't there also some German politicians who reckoned the men should spend more time with their tops off?"

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, mind.