Bundesliga show red card to saucy number request

The German Football League (DFL) have shown a red card to a request by Karlsruhe defender Dino Drpic and his pin-up wife who want the footballer to wear the suggestive number 69 on his playing shirt.

Bundesliga officials have blocked the idea on the grounds the numbers requested are hard to see over a distance, but Drpic and wife Nives Celzijus, a Playboy model, claim to want the erotic figures to help the club sell more shirts.

“We have asked the club to choose a lower number to make it easier to be seen,” the DFL’s Chief Operating Officer Holger Hieronymus told German tabloid Bild.

And Drpic’s agent Milan Lopac confirmed the idea had been blocked.

“Unfortunately, the DFL didn’t like the idea,” he said.

“Karlsruhe agreed with our suggestion and even found it a good idea as it would have helped with marketing the shirts.”

Defender Drpic, 27, who joined Karlsruhe on loan from Dinamo Zagreb in January, made his second appearance in his new side’s shock 3-2 win over Hamburg on Saturday, but was wearing the more orthodox No. 11 shirt.

Since her arrival in Germany with her husband, ex-Playboy model Celzijus has become a minor celebrity here and pictures of her in revealing underwear have appeared in Bild.

The Croatia beauty has taken over from Sylie van der Vaart – wife of former Hamburg midfielder Raphael – as the paper’s favourite footballer’s wife after the van der Vaart’s moved to Spain’s Real Madrid.

Celzijus is reported to have revealed she had made love to her husband on a football field’s centre circle in their native Zagreb.