“Twelve months ago we even heard the sad tale of the Romanian defender Marius Cioara, a man forced to abandon the game he loved for good because of the effect of sausages. Cioara, you may recall, was transferred from the Romanian second-flight club UT Arad to the fourth division outfit Regal Hornia for a fee of 15kg of prime pork links. Within a few days of the deal being done, however, he had packed his bags and fled the country. ‘The sausage taunts all got too much,’ he confessed. ‘They were making sausage jokes.’

‘They said I would have got more from the Germans. It was a huge insult. I have decided to go to Spain where I have got a job on a farm.’ Officials from Hornia were distraught. ‘Not only have we lost our sausages, we have also lost a footballer,’ the club president wailed.”

Harry Pearson, Guardian Unlimited Sports Blog

“Spain’s FA say their anti-racism drive has ‘borne fruit’: ‘We’ve done our utmost,’ says President Angel Maria Villar, ‘and we’ve had success.’ Among La Liga’s best signal moves so far: fining Real (annual profit £190m) £6,000 for Nazi salutes and flags; fining Getafe and Atleltico £435 each for ‘nigger’ chants; fining Deportivo, Albacete and Malaga £411 for sustained abuse including a physical attack on ‘black shit’ Paulo Wanchope; stopping regular grants to the Coalition Against Racism; shrugging off Getafa’s PR plan to ‘prove we’re no racists’ by blacking up players’ faces with boot polish for a photo shoot and - new last week - reacting to the cancellation of Luis Aragones £2,000 fine for calling Thierry Henry a ‘black shit’; ‘It is clear’ says Villar. ‘What he said wasn’t racist.’ Aragones says he’s ‘content’. ‘The fine was simply wrong. The whole thing was a stain on my reputation’”

David Hills, The Observer, 11/02/07