World Cup Players Told to Leave Bling-Bling at Home

FIFA has asked the referees at this summer’s World Cup to crack down on bad player behavior, as well as bad player fashion. Referees will be given an eight-point list of offenses that must be punished. They are: elbowing, reckless tackling, shirt-pulling, time-wasting, attitude towards referees, diving, behavior in the wall at free-kicks and wearing jewelry.

Just when you thought Italy had a chance to when the World Cup along comes this mandate to crack down on jewelry. Surely this will negatively impact the Italian players, as well as those from Argentina! David Beckham might as well just retire right now and save himself the embarrassment of a jewelry-free World Cup.

FIFA also approved the use of radio communication between referees if a system is found that doesn’t pick up German radio broadcasts of Robbie Williams and David Hasselhoff.

And because we have dumped on FIFA president Sepp Blatter quite a bit on this blog, today we will point out that we agree with his statement, “It is paramount there is better refereeing in 2006 than there was in 2002.”

Surely this will be possible now that the referees won’t be distracted by the players’ jewelry.