Clubs rush to sign ex­-Fiorentina manager's fists

SEVERAL Premier League chairmen have expressed an interest in manager Delio Rossi’s player-punching talents.

The Italian coach and pugilistic genius was sacked by Fiorentina after fulfilling the fantasy of football fans across the world by twatting Adem Ljajic.

One chairman, who wished to remain nameless, said: “Imagine the next time we’re 1­0 down in the 80th minute, Suarez is rolling around like a bucktoothed Weeble that’s just been shot and Rossi runs onto the pitch to hoof him in the onions? I’d give Gerrard’s left one to see that.”

“Mind you, we’ll need to buy him a stepladder to chin Carroll for missing his 40th sitter in a row as he’s a long old unit. Erm, hypothetically speaking, of course.”

Rossi has been banned from management for three months, giving him enough time to tour Europe giving after­-dinner speeches to rapt football managers describing what it feels like to deck the pampered millionaire children they have to nanny.

He will also release an exercise DVD Rossi’s Boxercise with stunt doubles playing the part of players including Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez and the entire England squad.

At the end of his suspension he will be free to move to any club troubled by overpaid players believing they are above reproach.

A shortlist of 127 clubs has so far emerged.

 

 

French presidential candidates begin smoke-­off

PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy and challenger Francois Hollande have commenced the long smoke­-off that will decide France’s new leader.

Both men lit their first Gauloises at 12pm yesterday and will spend 48 hours chain­smoking under lampposts while wearing hats and trenchcoats.

The French people will study the men’s smoking techniques, analysing every tiny movement for traces of loucheness, savoir faire, Gallic resignation and willingness to enter into doomed sexual entanglements with troubled women before they cast their votes.

Right­wing candidate Marine Le Pen ruled herself out of the competition after journalists for Le Monde photographed her parking a car without just smashing it into the one in front.

Hollande has won over the public with his encyclopaedic knowledge of the Asterix books, while Sarkozy is still widely supported for having a beautiful wife who sings unlistenable pop songs in the French tradition.

Both have been praised for their impeccable aloofness, with Hollande actually offered a job as maître’d at a Michelin­-starred Paris restaurant for his supercilious stare and permanent sneer.

But in the climactic smoke­-off Sarkozy has taken the lead for his wrinkle­-eyed gaze into the middle distance, which according to political commentator Antoine De Caunes looks ‘very much the stare of a man contemplating his mistress’s suicide which he feels powerless to stop.’

De Caunes said: “Sarkozy is looking impressively insouciant, puffing thick plumes of smoke from his nostrils like a carcinogenic dragon while leafing through a tastefully dog-eared vintage paperback copy of L’Etranger.

“In a masterstroke of Frenchness, he is periodically putting down the book and using the spare hand to cup his wife’s breast as she strums the chords to a Serge Gainbourg song on a battered guitar.

“Hollande, however, has too much resolve in his smoking. France may not be ready for a leader with that level of integrity.”