Some of us panic in the face of a crisis. Others, greater mortals, take a braver course of action, a course which many would shy away from - they stick on their boots and play football.

One such example of this sort of heroism can be found at Dublin's Inner City Partnership. They were struck by the pre-election outbreak of scare mongering over the numbers of refugees arriving in this country and decided to organise a football tournament aimed at bringing together many of the groups who come face to face with racism in the course of their everyday lives - this is, after all, the European Year Against Racism.

Provisionally scheduled as the curtain-raiser for the event, which takes place at the Blue Coat School, Blackhall Place on August 17th, is a game between the Garda and a team of Travellers. Other groups lined up to take part include sides drawn from the Vietnamese, Bosnian, Zairean and Romanian communities here as well as a combined panel of Russian, Danish, Dutch and Norweigan Dublin-based diplomats who regularly play together.

Other teams in the 16-strong seven-a-side tournament will be drawn from members of the Dail, workers from the Inner City Partnership itself and, of course, a team of celebrities. So far the event has received some sponsorship from Smithfield-based brewers Becketts but they are keen to hear from any companies who might be willing to provide them with further backing. Anybody interested should contact Ken McHugh in the Partnership at 872 5045.

It has, meanwhile, been a bizarre couple of weeks for international football with events in the Ukraine, Colombia and Iraq once again casting a shadow over the sport.

Most alarming were accusations, carried on the front page of last Sunday's Observer newspaper, that members of the Iraqi national side which lost a World Cup qualifier to Kazakhstan in June were brought to Radwaniya Prison the following week and tortured.

Opponents of Saddam Hussein's regime claim that Uday, Saddam's son, who is the head of both the national Football Association and its Olympic Committee, ordered the punishments, which included whipping of the back and soles of the feet, and that a cousin, Ahmed Sulaiman al-Majid, carried them out.

The London-based Coalition for Justice in Iraq also alleges that the Olympic Committee for many years used one room in its Baghdad headquarters as a cell where athletes or officials who were giving problems could be abused.

In the Ukraine a team of detectives were despatched to the eastern city of Luhansk after Yuri Pohrebnyak, first-team coach of Premier division outfit Metalurg Mariupol, was reportedly spotted for the first since he led an angry mob to the hotel of a referee and linesman who had earlier been in charge of his side's 5-2 home defeat by Vorskla Poltava. He helped to beat the two officials up.

Colombia meanwhile, has long had a history of involvement with violent characters in the game but after the national coach Hernan Dario Gomez received a death threat in the wake of a recent defeat by Chile, the police have given an indication of the problem.

State investigators told the newspaper El Tiempo that they believed 80 of the 142 registered shareholders in the country's leading 16 clubs were in fact fronts or "ghost characters" for prominent drug dealers wanted by the police for questioning.

Staying with South American football and the news that the man widely regarded as the best player in the world, Ronaldo, has announced to the Brazilian nation that he is prone to the odd bit of bed-wetting.

"I dream I am going to the bathroom, and instead . . . " he told an interviewer on national television recently. The Milan-bound star also admitted that his timing had let him down during the Olympic tournament - just after he had scored a goal in one of the games.

A New York financial broker this week agreed to pay $18,000 for the chunk of Evander Holyfield's ear which Mike Tyson bit off during their recent world heavyweight title fight.

Pete Stevens paid the money to an MGM Casino security guard who had retrieved the part of the ear from the ring and brought it to the Holyfield dressing-room in the hope that it could be reattached to the champion.

Alas, that couldn't be done so the obvious plan B was to flog the chunk of ligament and flesh off to the highest bidder - at which point enter Mr Stevens.

"I know some people think that I'm sick, but everybody collects baseball cards and jerseys," said Stevens who has had the authenticity of the goods verified by a surgeon and who now hopes to store his share of the ear in a jar filled with formaldehyde.

Michael Moorer, meanwhile, who earlier in the week challenged the champion to give him a shot at the title somehow managed to resist the temptation to tell the assembled press that he too wanted "a piece of the champ". Where oh where is Don King when you need him most?

Atlanta managed one last Olympics fiasco last week when they staged a preview of Bud Greenspan's documentary of last year's Games Atlanta's Olympic Glory at the 900-seat Rialto Cinema in the city.

The organisers billed the event as an opportunity for the media to interview the veteran director on his "insights into the making of the Official Film of the 1996 Olympic Games."

As it turned out, only three members of the media seemed to find the opportunity attractive and they were to be disappointed. The other three people to show up at the theatre were an Olympic volunteer and his wife, and former Atlanta Games press officer, Bob Brennan.

Greenspan had in fact been booked on a flight into the city that didn't land until after the screening was over.

Anyone puzzled by the size of the crowds which Formula One attracts to its races should pay a visit to Germany for some really bizarre sights. While the British Grand Prix recently attracted over 100,000 spectators, the German Truck Grand Prix at Nurburging achieved twice that figure.

Some years ago Steffi Graf gave an interview in which she told of the central role which religion played in her life. She would often pray before important events and she regularly attended church with her father, Peter, in Bruhl.

During a spell of prolonged injury at the age of 18 she was invited to the Vatican for a private half-hour audience with the Pope which, she said afterwards had helped her to recover her fitness. Now, it seems, that Steffi is leaving her religion behind her . . .

The reason behind the former world number one's move has been prompted by a £350,000 bill for church tax, a system by which members of certain congregations in Germany are obliged to pay between 1.4 and 2.3 per cent of their incomes toward the upkeep of the clergy and church property.

Graf's decision to opt out of paying the tax means that she will not be allowed to marry in a church, have a child baptised in one or be buried in consecrated ground. She may change her mind at a later date but that will involve spiritual and financial negotiations with representatives of the German Catholic hierarchy.

Mary Pierce, meanwhile arrived back in Paris this week from a spell on the road to discover that her purse had been stolen in transit and she was $700 out of pocket.

A larger crime in every sense, however, was the theft from American sumo ground champion Akebono of four million yen ($34,000) in cash and a gold bracelet after he had stored the loot from a safe at a Buddhist temple in central Japan.

An attendant of Akebono found that jewellery and cash, a little lunch money one presumes, had disappeared at Mantoku Temple in Inazawa, where that Hawaiianborn sumo wrestler was staying for the Nagoya Grand Sumo Tournament. The week got worse for the American who lost a winner-take-all bout with rival Yokozuka Tananohan on the final day of the tournament.

Please send any correspondence to On The Sidelines, Sports Dept, The Irish Times, 11-15 D'Olier Street, Dublin 2 or e-mail emalone@irish-times.ie