Me swear tells only the truth. So help God me

Joy turned to despair for the Irish football team this week as the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that team General Giovanni Trapattoni had been accused of “grievous atrocities against football”.

Despite his team fluking their way into a EURO 2012 play-off against Estonia, ‘Trap’ as he is known by his troops, has been charged following evidence submitted by an “overwhelming number of Irish football fans”.

The arrest warrant issued by The Hague court’s lists a number of charges against the 974-year-old Italian, including:

1. The playing of Donkeys in central midfield, in clear contradiction of the protocol against involving animals in combat.
2. The brutal butchering of the English language.
3. Occupying entire halves of opposition football pitches, building defensive settlements of 11 men and refusing to leave or dismantle the structures.
4. Endlessly launching long-range artillery in the vague direction of the enemy with little concern for where it eventually lands. Usually the innocent crowd.
5. Making Eamon Dunphy sound like a rational human being.
6. Inflicting visual torture on millions of football fans all over the world.
7. Providing support to the regime of the dictator John Delaney, who has enriched himself despite Ireland’s meagre natural football resources.
8. Glenn Whelan.

The arrest warrant also lays charges against Trapattoni’s alleged enforcers, Marco ‘Chuckles’ Tardelli and Liam ‘The justifier’ Brady.

In the lead up to Trapattoni’s arrest, Brady has been seen on television making increasingly whiny pronouncements that the General “was only intent on winning the qualification war”, and “we’d all thank him in the end, regardless of how many dreams or skulls he had to crush in the meantime.”

Tardelli was reported to have made a desperate bid to offer Armenia a “rematch” of the country’s recent skirmish – where Ireland justified their victory through illegal means by saying “It was done to us, we do it to them. A handball deterrent is our right as a nation.”