Officials of Trentino 1921 in northern Italy have scored a controversial winner for the club by signing a sponsorship deal with an escort agency. The club received 10,000 euros (about £7,000) in the agreement which sees the name of the escort agency, Casa Bianca, posted on the club's official website.

The Casa Bianca is based across the Austrian border in Innsbruck and describes itself as a "sensuous place”. The agency’s website reportedly crashed due to overuse after Trentino placed a link to it on the club’s homepage. Iva Berasi, the town’s female councillor in charge of local sport, reacted angrily to the deal asked the club to reconsider the deal out of respect to local women.

Sporting sponsorship to dye for

The outrage over Trentino’s sponsorship deal is not the only recent sporting business deal to be criticised. Officials at the Rugby World Cup reacted angrily after Tongan powerhouse centre Epi Taione controversially changed his name to Paddy Power for the duration of the competition in a sponsorship deal agreed with the Irish bookmaker.

By the time Tonga met England in a crucial group game, the International Rugby Board (IRB) was forced to act amid rumours that the entire Tongan team planned to dye their hair green as a thank you to Paddy Power. The company had bankrolled the cash-strapped team’s entire three-week stay in Montpellier and paid the costs for some of their training camp.

The IRB pressured the Tongans into a hasty re-styling of their luminescent locks, but not before several players had appeared at a press conference with T-shirts wrapped around their heads. Five hours before the game kicked off, a consignment of 2,000 green wigs mysteriously arrived in Saint-Cloud for distribution to Tongan families, friends and fans.