For someone like me who enjoys watching a good soccer game, but knows relatively little about the sport, it would seem that European players are constantly committing fouls; pulling on each other's shirts, tripping one another and shoving. But now Italian soccer players will have to be wary of a whole new category of yellow or red cards: swearing. And boy, given the Italian propensity for bad language and, yes, blasphemy (that's what it's called here), this is really going to be fun.

It ha also been decided that players will now have to do away with the undershirts with writings on them they have taken to wearing under their team polos and exhibiting when the fancy strikes them. Players are forbidden "to exhibit writings with personal, religious or political content", while on the field say the new rules and will, if they do so, be subject to fines.

So much for the players. What to do about fans who shout racist slogans - other than to call a game or close the bleachers for the next game - is still a nagging problem.