WHEN you're a millionaire soccer star with countless fans to please, it can prove a costly mistake to appear in public with an inferior hair style or a badly trimmed goatee beard.

The players of the sartorially superior Italian squad at Euro 96 are so worried about their looks that they have forked out a small fortune equipping their training ground changing rooms with new mirrors, showers and hairdryers.

The team decided the existing facilities at Crewe and Alsager College were just not good enough and paid half of the £20,000 needed to revamp the shower block.

"In particular they wanted new showers, hairdryers and mirrors to make sure they looked good after training," a source close to the team said yesterday.

Workmen spent weeks replacing the changing room floors, retiling the showers and giving the whole building a new click of paint. The college paid the other half of the bill. The squad was delighted with the changes and has shown its gratitude by promising to let the college keep the hairdryers.

SIX teams have already been fined for their bad disciplinary record.

The fines, which follow a UEFA practice for fining any team which accumulates four or more yellow cards in a single game, brought a £4,000 punishment for Germany, who had six players booked in an Old Trafford clash with the Czech Republic that brought 10 yellow cards in total.

The Spanish (four bookings and one sending off) were fined £3,500, Bulgaria (three bookings and one sending off) £2,500, Portugal (five bookings) £2,500, the Czech Republic (four bookings) £2,500 and Switzerland (four bookings) £2,000.

The hardline approach was announced yesterday afternoon at a meeting of UEFA's disciplinary committee in London where the two players dismissed so far - Bulgarian defender Petar Houbthev and striker Juan Antonio Pizzi of Spain - were also banned for one match each.

There were bookings in the first four matches. In all, there were 50 bookings in the 31 match competition in Sweden and Germany, with 11, were the worst offenders.