?Retired? means never having to say you?re sorry

If you?re like me, you?ve got one thing to say about Zinedine Zidane: ?Who?s that??

As it turns out, Zidane is not the latest medication advertised on afternoon television. Although ?Ask your doctor if Zidane is right for you? does have a nice ring to it. Maybe he should go into the pharmaceutical endorsement business.

No, Zinedine Zidane is the now-famous French soccer player, who was known throughout the ?futbol? community for his outstanding play during his career, and now is known throughout the rest of the world for his battering ram-style head butt of an Italian player during the World Cup finals.

By now, you?ve probably seen the highlights. If not, just type ?Soccer Head-butt? into any Internet search engine, and you can see from every angle how Zidane rammed his shaven cranium into Marco Materazzi?s sternum with such force he knocked the Italian to the ground and was ejected from the tournament championship.

Well this week, Zidane had to pay for his billy goat-inspired actions, and Materazzi had to cough up some cash as well, as FIFA brought down the hammer of punishment on the two soccer stars.

Zidane was fined $6,000 for his head-butt, while Materazzi will have to pay $4,000 for the taunts and derogatory comments which provoked the incident.

In addition, Materazzi will have to sit out for his team?s next two games, while Zidane drew a three-game suspension.

While it?s odd enough that both players were fined while only one was ejected from the game ? a move that many argue cost the French the championship ? it?s even more strange that Zidane drew a suspension despite the fact he is retired from his sport.

And in the strangest turn of events yet to come out of this incident, Zidane will serve his suspension. He?s going to perform community service work for three days, since he won?t have three games to sit out to serve his sentence.

If you didn?t think soccer people were weird before, surely this has convinced you.

Let?s put ourselves in Zidane?s shiny soccer shoes for a minute.

If you quit your job today, would you pay any attention to any order your boss gave you tomorrow? Maybe it?s just me, but if I get the ax next Monday, there will be no ?Robservations? next Friday ? at least none that will be fit to print.

But apparently Zidane is so loyal to FIFA (which sounds like the sound made by a tire running over a nail, by the way), he is going to pony up the dough for his fine, and serve his suspension, despite being officially retired from his sport. Am I the only one that finds that a bit silly?

Of course, like every controversy in sports, there?s likely more to this story than appears on the surface. Zidane will probably pay his fine, do his community service, then land a job as a coach or league officiall somewhere. Or maybe the league threatened to take his award for being the best player in the World Cup tournament away from him if he didn?t step up and play the subservient good-guy role.

Or it could be something much simpler. Zidane could just not be that bright. He does like to ram his head into things, maybe he shook something loose.