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Fans of FC Schalke 04, which represents western Germany's Ruhr Valley in the country's top league, the Budesliga, can continue to support their team with a round of "Blue and White, how I love you".

The Gelsenkirchen club, which plays in Germany's top league, the Bundesliga, has confirmed yesterday they had no intention of outlawing fans from singing ther traditional song after Islamic scholar Bülent Ucar, who the club asked to study the lyrics, judged it was not offensive.

The third verse contains the line:

Mohammed war ein Prophet, der vom Fussballspielen nichts versteht/ Doch aus all der schoenen Farbenpracht hat er sich das Blau und Weisse ausgedacht.

(Muhammad was a prophet who understood nothing about football/ But of all the lovely colours he chose [Schalke's] blue and white.)

Since a reference to the ode to team's colours was carried in Turkish media, the team has received hundreds of complaints from Muslims.

Aiman Mazyek, the head of Germany's Central Council of Muslims, said his group would not call for a ban on the song but would like "an explanation of its background". He acknowledged that the line could anger some and noted that the area represented by the team had a large Turkish population. Germany has a Muslim population of over four million.

The German news website Deutsche Welle says the song was written in 1924 and it is not clear when the Muhammad reference made its way in.

German football fans have been advised to tone down their goal celebrations to reduce the risk of catching swine flu.

The warning came from Susanne Huggett, the director of a German laboratory who told Bild: "They (fans) shouldn't shake someone's hand, kiss or hug" when a goal is scored.

Ms Huggett added: "At a football stadium people are seated very close together. If you find yourself next to someone who is coughing and sniffling all the time, you should think about switching places."

The German first division, followed by 17.5 million fans last season, is due to open today without any special swine flu precautions in place.

"For the moment we don't feel any need to do anything in this area, but we are following developments very closely and we are in close contact with the authorities," noted Holger Hieronymus, director of the German league.

Having said that a third division game scheduled for tomorrow has had to be cancelled after two players went down with swine flu.

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Some good news: It seems like FIFA is putting pressure on the Iranian government over their ban of 4 national team players for wearing wristbands reflecting their support for opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.

FIFA wrote to the Iranian football federation on Wednesday to ask for answers over alleged punishments meted out to several of their players involved.

It has been reported that they had been told they would never play for their country again because of their stance.

A FIFA spokesperson told AFP on Wednesday that they had written a letter asking for more information. "We wrote a letter to the Iranian Federation to ask for some answers and clarification regarding the press reports over what happened to some of the Iranian players following the qualifier with South Korea on June 17," the spokesperson said.

Let's hope that pressure from FIFA will allow the 4 banned players to be reinstated to their positions in the Iranian national team.

Image: AP

This is not directly related to German football, but I think its something that all football fans around the world should be concerned about.

Apparently, four Iranian footballers have been "retired" from the national side after protesting against the contested election result in the country during a match against South Korea.

Iran has refused to overturn the results of the controversial presidential poll which saw President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-elected despite a wave of public demonstrations and complaints that the June 12 election was rigged.

The players had drawn attention to the situation in Iran by wearing green armbands during last week's World Cup qualifying match in Seoul. Green is the color used by opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi during his campaign for presidency and has been widely worn by supporters protesting since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was announced the winner.

Six players wore the armbands during the first half of the match, returning in the second minus the accessories.

However, according to Iranian news reports, four players -- Ali Karimi, 31, Mehdi Mahdavikia, 32, Hosein Ka'abi, 24 and Vahid Hashemian, 32 -- have been "retired" from the sport following the gesture. The pro-government newspaper, Iran, reported the players had received the equivalent of a life ban.

Karimi is one of Iranian football's best-known stars, having played for Bayern Munich. Ka'abi played for Leicester City for several months during the 2007/8 season. Hashemian and Mahdavikia play for Bochum and Eintracht Frankfurt.

Ahmadinejad is a known football fan, and has a keen interest in the national team's affairs. On June 14, he compared protesters in Tehran to fans of a losing football team.

I think a more accurate comparison would be if the team was ruled to have lost the match by the referee even though it had scored more goals. As ridiculous as it sounds, that's what the situation in Iran is like now.