The Clericus Cup, often referred to as the ‘Priestly World Cup’, is an international football tournament for Catholic clergy held at Vatican City. It is now running in its second edition (the first edition ran from February to June 2007) with the present competition starting last November.

The Italian football federation had hoped that this competition would help restore a positive image in Italy following the Calciopoli crisis in 2006 and recent football-related violence.

The tournament comprises 16 teams, composed of catholic clergy and seminarians. One of the teams is made up of the Swiss guards, the Pope’s secret service equivalent whilst there is another team from the Vatican. The other teams are made up of the various catholic colleges and church congregations in Vatican City.

In total, 311 athletes from countries including the United States, Brazil, Papua New Guinea and Rwanda were registered.

The final, this year, will take place in the Italian capital at the end of May. The organizers are the Vatican and CSI (Centro Sportivo Italiano), a Christian organization that promotes education through sport. The original idea is however completely credited to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, who is a well-known as an ardent and keen Juventus fan.

CSI had originarily issued a statement saying , "the Clericus Cup is an occasion for all those enthusiasts, and some former players — who are in seminaries today, attending university, studying to be a priest — to put themselves back in the game, dribbling, making saves and headers. The purpose is really to reinvigorate the tradition (of sport inside the Christian community. Sport is a magnificent tool for bringing the young together. Aside from physical training, a soccer match can serve as a means to personal, social and spiritual growth.A priest that can get together with kids to play soccer is the best advertisement for sporting culture inside the Church.” The statement also provided a practical example and stated that, after all, the late Pope John Paul II was a keen sportsman and played soccer in his youth, mostly as a goalkeeper.

The teams are principally made up of trainee priests, who are studying at the various pontifical universities in Rome. Games are limited to one hour, rather than the normal 90 minutes. This is a factor that tempted some of the older generation to play. The coaching staff is also exclusively clerical.

The Clericus Cup games are played at a Vatican soccer pitch in Rome. Teams will be allowed one time-out and the referee will brandish a blue card, which will send off errant players for a five-minute suspension. In other wors, referees show a blue card to temperamental players to send them to a ‘sin bin’ for five minutes to calm down.

The first edition of the Clericus Cup was limited to teams from Rome but the format could be extended to other regions throughout Italy in the future if this first edition results in a success.

Prior to the start of the tournament, certain newspapers published certain statements like that of Gianni Petrucci, the Italian Olympic Committee President who said "It's an intelligent initiative which helps give a positive image to sport and especially to soccer." Father Emil Martin, a Cameroonian who plays for Pontifical Urban College, said "I expect the tournament to create a friendly relationship among the players and the teams. I hope each one can learn to win but also to lose because not everybody knows how to lose."

A certain atmosphere had been felt in the tournament from the beginning, with organizers forced to ban megaphones, drums, tambourines and boomboxes in response to complaints about the noise.

Things got a twist to the worse when in the last days we heard of the incident where a priest has been sent off in this competition for throwing his shirt at the referee.

The incident took place when a priest from Burkina Faso, who was playing for Paul the Apostle’s College, reportedly lost his temper during a game, took off his shirt before throwing it angrily at the referee.

The scenes were reminiscent of Antonio Cassano’s red card against Torino, just a week earlier, when the Sampdoria forward went out of control at the Stadio Ferraris, and was later handed a five-match ban and a heavy fine for throwing his shirt at the Italian referee Pierpaoli.

As a result of the priest’s actions, Paul the Apostle’s College was eliminated from the tournament.

These last weeks have also witnessed some sad incidents where referees were concerned. The major incident occurred in Bulgaria where football referee Valeri Petrovski had to be recovered in hospital after being beaten up in his personal car near his home in Sofia.

The 43-year-old Petrovski, considered one of the country's leading referees and a full-time referee, began officiating matches in the Bulgarian top division in 1996. Presently he is refereeing in the second division yet he was part of the A pool class rank in the period 1996 - 2005.

In nearby Italy, we had the case where referee Mauro Bergonzi was sent into hiding by police after thugs tried to attack someone who looked like him. Bergonzi had awarded two controversial penalties in Napoli's 3-1 win over Juventus in October.

Italian media reported that "a dangerous incident happened.

A group of people encircled someone they thought was a referee, they tried to abduct him and continually punch him. The only thing was he just looked like the referee. The man was however a bank manager and he managed to reveal this at the end to save himself from more blows. On the advice of the police, the referee (Bergonzi) was forced to live under protection and went to another province for two weeks."

In the meantime, world-known, now former, referee Pierluigi Collina, who now appoints officials for Italian games, has been sent bullets in the post and has been given a police escort as supporters' anger grows following a number of controversial decisions.