PLANET SOCCER

Mary Hanniganreviews the week in soccer

Ronaldo mimics a real ladykiller

PICTURE the scene. A young woman spots "Cristiano Ronaldo" in a nightclub and approaches him.

"I tell them they are very beautiful in Portuguese and I sometimes put the accent on as well," 'he' says.

So they have a, well, liaison and in the morning, "I just say to them, 'I've got something to tell you'."

What? Well, he isn't Ronaldo; he's Jaime Wright from Eastbourne.

Despite looking more like Gary Neville, Jamie earns £800 a day, his work so far "yielding" five women who thought Cristiano and themselves had become an item.

"Luckily they always find it funny," said Jamie, who, if he had a heart, would lend them a few quid to buy contact lenses.

Knives and forks out in Zimbabwe squad scandal

THERE we were, browsing through zimdaily.com - as most of you surely do - when we stumbled upon a shocking story about high jinks in the Zimbabwe camp.

"A scandal of seismic heights," was how the reporter described news of naughtiness between Henrietta Rushwaya, the head of the Zimbabwe FA, and Manchester City's Benjani.

Rushwaya's "flurry of sex appetite" had, said the reporter, spelt "the demise of the nation's hopes of qualifying for international soccer tourneys", the final straw her "naughty social episodes" with Benjani. "She is known for being generous with her body and numerous scribes have had a go," revealed an anonymous source, explaining why she hadn't been outed by the press before.

She had, we were told - and by now we were double-checking that we weren't reading The Onion - hung around the squad's hotel, "where most renowned male vultures close to her had a feast".

Most damning of all, we think, was this revelation by one of the squad: "If you would like to see our mother figure you can come during lunch hour and you will surely not miss her in the dining hall as she cannot miss the exercise of colliding utensils against each other."

A seismic cutlery scandal? And we thought the FAI was lively.

Derby drop ball with dinner guest

YOU know the way the English FA has launched an investigation in to match-fixing allegations relating to Derby County's win over Norwich City a couple of weeks back? Well, both clubs, of course, have categorically denied any wrongdoing and are confident the investigation will prove them innocent. All the same, Derby should probably have thought twice before sticking an ad in their match programme announcing a sportsman's dinner at the club, where the guest speaker will be a certain . . . Bruce Grobbelaar.

Quotes of the week

"Apologise, come and play and say you're sorry for what you said and what you did - or bugger off and don't bother."

- Jack Charlton steps in as mediator and offers some advice to Stephen Ireland.

"We're actually trying to sign Snow White to lead my players out at Old Trafford. If we can get hold of her, we might be all right."

- Gordon Strachan suggesting his dwarf-like team would struggle against United's big lads. He was right.

"They'll miss the physical presence of Van Hennegor, or whatever ye call him . . . him from Castlemilk."

- Alex Ferguson on, eh, Celtic's big lad Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink.

"Who is Souleymane Diawara? If he went to play in Saudi Arabia people would ask 'what kind of ketchup is that?' Me, I'm known everywhere. I was one of the best 100 players of the century."

- El Hadji Diouf pays tribute to his Senegal team-mate.

"The quality of the pass is not linked to the size of the heels of the girl."

- Arsène Wenger, rather majestically, dismisses the notion the "wags" banjaxed England's 2006 World Cup campaign.

IT was one of those "please, please, please - tell me you're jesting" moments when we read this line on the Daily Mirror website last week: "Chelsea fans laid flowers at Stamford Bridge yesterday after a radio host joked that a former player had died."

It was - and you might have trouble believing this - true.

Comedian Goldstein dies a death

TalkSport's Andy Goldstein apparently announced that Jason Cundy couldn't make it on to his Sports Bar show because, well, he'd "passed away".

Considering Cundy battled back from cancer 10 years ago the, eh, joke was even less amusing than Goldstein intended it to be.

"It was a silly joke by Andy that backfired," said Cundy. "My wife got weird texts and someone even changed my Wikipedia page."

The station apologised for the "inappropriate comments".

Chelsea fans should bill them for the flowers.

More quotes of the week

"I don't want to start swearing like Joe Kinnear, but to say I was slightly aggrieved would be a posh way of putting it."

- Roy Keane going all la-di-da when he reflected on Sunderland's disallowed goal against Fulham the weekend before last.

"Does day follow night? I haven't a clue."

- Crystal Palace supremo Neil Warnock

"Fernando Torres is a tremendous implement."

- Pundit extraordinaire Mick Quinn.

"My reputation will always precede me until the day I die. For some people that probably can't come quickly enough."

- Joey Barton, not feeling much loved this weather.

"We were a bit like the Dirty Dozen. Only not murderers."

- Former Watford defender Ian Bolton reflecting fondly on life under Graham Taylor at Vicarage Road.