Remember when you were six (or maybe 46) and you asked your Ma if you prayed to Holy God would He let your team win the cup final? And she said "no" because Holy God couldn't take sides and, anyway, it wouldn't be fair on Rangers? And you thought that was fair enough?

Well then, how does your Ma explain Italian priest Fr Cristopher Zielinski's actions last week?

"I hope and I pray that the Holy Spirit will shine on UEFA," he said, during a mass in Florence in an appeal for divine intervention to stop UEFA from kicking Fiorentina out of the UEFA Cup (after a firework caused the abandonment of last Tuesday's match against Swiss club Grasshopper). Yesterday UEFA kicked Fiorentina out of the UEFA Cup. If they hadn't your Ma would have had an awful lot of lost cup finals to answer for.