20/02/2007 - LOTTO DRESSES THE CLERICUS CUP. PRIESTS AND SEMINARIANS ON THE PITCH!

Trevignano (Italy), 20 February 2007 - Lotto Sport Italia, the leading Italian company in the manufacture and distribution of sporting footwear, clothing and accessories, has signed a new sponsorship agreement for 18 football teams taking part in the Clericus Cup - the first championship for priests and trainee priests/seminarians.

Lotto will provide the balls and the strips which about 300 players will wear during the matches. For the Vatican team, Lotto has personalised the 'Magma' Jersey, a top-in-the-range item in their football collection, in the colours of the Papal flag. It will be a unique blend of the Lotto double-diamand logo, the crossed keys surmounted by the Pope's tiara, and the Vatican City seal.

The first 11-a-side football championship will be among students of colleges, universities and the Papal Seminaries of Rome and the surrounding province, and is being promoted by CSI ("Centro Sportivo Italiano"). Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone put forward the idea of the Clericus Cup in Genoa at the presentation of the club season. A keen sport enthusiast and football fan himself, the Cardinal underlined that this is not a round of church recreation matches but a world cup in its own right, involving players from 37 countries.

The football regulations will apply some exceptions, like the one-minute time-out rule per team per match, and the blue card, which sends off players for 5 minutes for serious fouls or conduct. Given the teams' composition, such a measure should be superfluous but making predictions when it comes to football is always hazardous. Each half will last 30 minutes, allowing for "flying" substitutions and the possibility of unlimited player changes.

The elimination rounds of the Clericus Cup last seven match days with two tables of nine teams contending for places in the semi finals, with goals galore and penalties if necessary. The first match will kick off in Rome on 24 February. The semi finals will be divided into away and home legs, on 5 and 19 May respectively. The final days will be 7 June, with the match deciding third and fourth place, and then the 9th, for the Grand Final. The winners will go on to compete in the regional and/or inter-regional finals of the Italian CSI "Open" championship.

'We are thrilled, says Alberto Landi, Marketing Director of Lotto Sport Italia 'to support such an initiative aimed at enhancing the awareness of Fair Play in sport, especially in a February marked by events that have undermined football's philosophy. Lotto sees sport and its disciplines as being about commitment, honesty and integrity. And the Clericus Cup certainly sums up all such valuable principles.'