Italy’s Marco Materazzi called Zinedine Zidane a ”son of a terrorist whore” just before the France captain gave him a brutal headbutt in the World Cup final, Britain’s top forensic lip-reader says.
The Times newspaper hired Jessica Rees, whose skill has seen her summoned as an expert witness at criminal trials, to study a tape of Sunday’s match that saw Zidane get a red card for his seemingly spontaneous assault.
”After an exhaustive study of the match video, and with the help of an Italian translator, Rees claimed that Materazzi called Zidane ‘the son of a terrorist whore’, before adding ‘so just fuck off’ for good measure,” it said.
Materazzi on Monday denied calling Zidane a terrorist, adding that ”I don’t even know what the word means”.
The Daily Mail — who wrongly described Marseilles native Zidane as ”Algeria-born” — said on Tuesday that it, too, engaged the services of a lip reader, whom it did not identify, who reached the exact same conclusion as Rees.
The Independent cited lip readers for Brazil’s Globo television as concluding that Materazzi had told Zidane that his sister was a ”prostitute”.
Meanwhile, Materazzi has for the first time acknowledged that he ”insulted” Zidane because he was super arrogant in the World Cup final, La Gazzetta dello Sport reported on Tuesday.
Zidane (34) floored Materazzi with a headbutt to the chest in the second half of extra-time in Sunday’s final and was sent off, missing a penalty shoot-out in which he would have been expected to take one of France’s spot-kicks.
”I held his shirt … for only a few seconds, he turned toward me and scoffed at me, looking at me with super arrogance, up and down: ‘If you really want my shirt, you can have it later’ [Zidane said]. It’s true, I shot back with an insult,” the paper quoted Materazzi as saying.
Asked whether he had insulted Zidane’s sister or mother, Materazzi said, it was an ”insult of the kind you will hear dozens of times and that just slips out on the ground”.
”I certainly didn’t call him a terrorist; I am ignorant, I don’t even know what an Islamic terrorist is. My only terrorist is her,” he said, pointing to his 10-month-old daughter who was sleeping next to him on the plane that took the Italian team back to Italy.
”I certainly did not mention Zidane’s mother; for me a mother is sacred.”
In recalling the incident in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, the newspaper Corriere della Sera said that Materazzi lost his mother when he was 14 and that he would certainly not have insulted Zidane’s.
The French player’s agent had said on Monday that Zidane’s World Cup final assault on Materazzi was provoked by a ”very serious” comment made by the Italian defender.
The former Real Madrid star’s moment of madness in his last match before retiring may have been provoked by Materazzi calling his sister a prostitute, according to a report on Brazilian television channel Globo.
Fantastico, a programme on Globo, employed lip-reading experts who said footage of the incident showed the Italian twice insulted Zidane’s sister.
The programme claimed Materazzi made the same comment twice before then using a ”coarse word” at the French player.
Zidane has not given his account of the incident but there have been reports Materazzi had called him a ”terrorist” or suggested he did not have the right to play for France — both insults based on French-born Zidane’s Algerian heritage. — AFP
