Vatican ‘just kidding’ over possible football team

THE VATICAN secretary of state was just kidding when he said the Holy See might one day have a football team to rival the top formations in Italy’s powerful Serie A, a report said yesterday.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone created a buzz on Sunday when he told reporters: “I do not preclude the possibility that the Vatican, in the future, could put together a football team of great value, that could play on the same level as Roma, Inter Milan and Sampdoria.”

But later Bertone, Pope Benedict XVI’s right hand man, ate his words. “After a joke ... everyone started hypothesising about a great Vatican football team.

“I don’t think it’s possible, so let’s stop fantasising,” he told the Vatican-watching news agency.

Italian media seized on the subject, contacting the head of the UEFA, William Gaillard, in Brussels.

“Why not?” he said. “We already have San Marino, Liechtenstein and Andorra.”