by MARY HANNIGAN

Stab-proof vests cause offence

NOT too surprisingly great offence was taken by the South African authorities, already a bit sensitive about the country’s image, when news emerged of a London company selling stab-proof vests to fans planning on travelling to the World Cup finals this summer.

The Protektorvest, which can be customised with the flag of each competing nation, offers “effective protection from potential attacks from blades, knives, bottles and broken glass”.

“These people are out of order,” said Kirsten Nematandani, head of the South African football association. “We’ve never heard of such measures being taken before and there surely is no need for it.”

Meanwhile, in other news, the official song for the tournament has been chosen. It’s called Wavin’ Flag and its original lyrics featured lines like . . . “A violent prone, poor people zone . . . learn from these streets, it can be bleak, accept no defeat, surrender, retreat . . . so we strugglin’, fightin’ to eat . . . so many wars, settlin’ scores, bringin’ us promises, leavin’ us poor.”

Cheerful stuff. Understandably the singer, K’Naan, will be producing a new version of the tune, called the Celebration Mix, which is likely to be a little bit more upbeat. And, we assume, there’ll be divil a mention of stab-proof vests.

Veron out of tune with Neville

CARLOS Tevez, of course, isn’t the first man to fail to see eye to eye with Gary Neville – he even had a run-in with a group including a former Leinster rugby legend.

Yesterday’s News of the World had Argentinian Juan Sebastian Veron – the ex-Manchester United mega-flop – reminiscing about a past brush with the defender.

“One Christmas, me and my team-mates at United went out to celebrate.

“We went to a lot of bars in a bus.

“I invited Argentine rugby players Agustin Pichot and Felipe Contepomi.

“I took a microphone and started to sing Let’s go Argentina and then Neville started to sing for England.

“So I hit Neville on the head with the microphone and there was a big fight between me, Pichot, Contepomi and the English. There was blood everywhere.”

Bad timing

SPARE a thought for the folk at Match magazine. According to the Daily Mirror they tried to have the “entire 150,000 print run of their latest issue scrapped after they went to press”, but failed. What was the problem?

In their Africa Cup of Nations preview they asked Emmanuel Adebayor: “Do you agree that Togo are in the group of death?”.

Oh Lord.

“He’d forgotten to put his shorts on. It’s a new one on me and you do wonder, don’t you? I don’t know whether someone has to do his bootlaces up as well.”

A slightly despairing Harry Redknapp after he had to delay sending on Sebastien Bassong as a sub against Liverpool.

Tevez’ remarks lost in translation

WHEN we added up the words reportedly used by Carlos Tevez last week in his tribute to Gary Neville we came up with “boot-licking, sock-sucking, arse-kissing, idiot/creep/moron/retard suck-up”. Roy Keane, we guessed, would have thought Carlos was being generous.

Remember? “Maybe Gary Neville deserves to be chased up a tunnel every now and then – there’d be a queue for him probably.”

It seems, though, that the variety of slurs was simply down to the way the various reports translated Tevez’ remarks, with his agent Kia Joorabchian insisting that they were “lost in translation”.

“If you translate a slang terminology into an actual word, it may turn out to look like a very bad word. In reality, it might not be such a bad word,” he said.

The slang word in question was “tarado”, which the Daily Mail told us “in its strongest and most literal translation” tarado means “retard”.

But “it could also be translated as moron, jerk, dimwit or idiot”.

So, no offence was meant, really.

Quotes of the week

“You can’t have the under-soil heating on during the game. I saw it on Panorama, or something.”

– Paul Merson as quoted, quite stupendously, in the Daily Mirror.

“Ronaldo is shown in the media like Tarzan in shorts. He must get up in he morning, see himself on the front pages of the newspapers, and believe he is Superman or God.”

– Former Real Madrid president Lorenzo Sanz.

“He says he’s really in to it and asks us if we watch it. Because he’s such a legend you think he’s beyond that kind of thing, but really he’s just a normal guy.”

– Liam Rosenior revealing his manager, Roy Keane, is glued to Celebrity Big Brother.

“I must be absolutely honest here, when I played against (Mario) Balotelli – and he knows this – I wanted to kill him. Now that he is my team-mate, I still want to kill him.”

– Inter Milan’s Diego Milito.

“Going from Real Madrid to Stoke City, I’m not so sure that’s sexy enough for him, we’ll see.”

– Stoke manager Tony Pulis – just before Ruud van Nistelrooy was seduced in to joining . . . Hamburg.

“My eldest daughter Noelle is fluent in English now. It’s not so much English she speaks as Scouse. When we go on holiday she has to speak in a proper English accent so people can understand her. It cracks me up, it is so funny.”

– Dirk Kuyt offends his adopted city.

“When somebody scored, everyone used to celebrate together. Today, they run across . . . I don’t know whether it’s self-adulation or what. Tattoos, ear rings – it’s not my world, but I’ve had to adjust to it.”

– Alex Ferguson, feeling old.

“Many national teams are interested. They asked us ‘what are you doing, what aren’t you doing?’ But for now we’re remaining loyal to what we signed. But in life I always say never say never.”

– Giovanni Trapattoni fully-ish committed to the Irish cause.