What price ambush marketing? Well, the going rate seems to be €100,000 (£80,000) according to Uefa, which has fined the Denmark striker Nicklas Bendtner that extraordinary amount for revealing a pair of underpants with the name of an Irish bookmaker on it.

Uefa has also banned Bendtner for one game, meaning that Denmark will be without their top striker for their crucial World Cup qualifier against Czech Republic in September. It is a ban that could have huge implications for the Danes’ hopes of qualifying for the 2014 World Cup and, subsequently, the Danish FA’s income for the next few years.

In some of the cases Bendtner’s “crime” has been judged by Uefa to be about 10 times as bad as racist chanting. How can anyone possibly justify that? Uefa needs to come out and say why it has decided to fine a player £80,000 for breaking a rule he said “he wasn’t aware of” while punishing racist abuse less severely.