Perugia President wants Ljungberg

Denying that it was a gimmick, he insisted that if the move was halted "women all over the world will revolt".

This is classic Gaucci. He can offer high-faluting stuff about supporting women's rights while also raving about green-eyed lovelies. Likewise, when he recently signed Colonel Gaddafi's son, Al-Saadi, it was partly because, as his mate Silvio Berlusconi told him, it would do so much to repair damaged relations with Libya.

Hmm. Cynics will note Gaddafi, supposedly laid up with a bad back, has not had a game yet. "Ah, but just you watch. He will," insisted Gaucci. And what if his eccentric coach Serse Cosmi didn't think the Colonel's lad was up to it? "Well I'd counsel Cosmi to select him," said Gaucci. Having dispensed with 14 other managers in his 12 years at Perugia, this may be worth heeding.

His innovative scouting and dealing has enabled a little club to keep notching up top-10 finishes on a shoestring. He not only employs fans to pore over hundreds of match videos sent into the club each week and write detailed reports, but he also studies many of them himself.

This unlikely system saw former Arsenal starlet Jay Bothroyd become the latest in a line of real steals. "My best acquisition," raved Gaucci. "You should have seen him run rings round (Milan's) Paolo Maldini at the weekend."

Gaucci is not universally loved but his man-ofthepeople approach strikes a chord with those who see him as a feisty defender of smaller clubs' rights and applaud his TV punditry about, say, players being overpaid.

Most of all, though, it's his flights of fancy that Italians can't resist. He once promised but failed to sign an ageing Maradona; there's still time, though, for him to snap up Madonna.