Wives, employees cry foul

From Communist Vietnam and military-ruled Myanmar to modern, squeaky clean Singapore, soccer-mad Asians are sacrificing sleep to watch the l...

From Communist Vietnam and military-ruled Myanmar to modern, squeaky clean Singapore, soccer-mad Asians are sacrificing sleep to watch the likes of David Beckham and Zinedine Zidane battle it out in Euro 2004. Matches beamed live from Portugal may not start before midnight in most parts of south-east Asia, and some end just before dawn.

While this has mostly translated into bleary eyes at the office and a thirst for coffee, in Malaysia the tournament sparked a marital tiff after a salesman8217;s wife caught him watching Sunday night8217;s England-France clash against her orders.

Awoken by her husband8217;s cry of anguish at French skipper Zinedine Zidane8217;s injury-time winner, the wife confiscated the TV remote control and satellite smart card and imposed a soccer ban.

8216;8216;She refused to allow me to watch the game although I promised not to oversleep or shun my responsibility of sending the children to school8217;8217;, the 46-year-old told the Star newspaper. 8220;My wife just doesn8217;t understand my passion for football.8221;

Wives are not the only worried ones.

Bosses in Singapore are alarmed at the prospect of fatigued fans after the obsessively efficient city state allowed more bars to stay open round the clock and screen matches broadcast between midnight and 5 a.m.

Some companies have even sent reminders to staff doctors to watch out for patients feigning sickness to skip work during the tournament, according to state broadcaster Channel News Asia.

Soccer truancy has even taken hold in straight-laced Vietnam, where the official Vietnam News daily said more than half the male staff at a number of offices in the capital, Hanoi, came in late to work on Monday.

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Thailand, which is meant to be buying a chunk of English Premiership club Liverpool, has gone into party mode. Huge TV screens have popped up in squares in Bangkok, where it is now difficult to enter a supermarket or massage parlour without being accosted by staff done up in football bras and skirts, or the strip of the various Euro 2004 teams. Even isolated Myanmar, the former British colony which has been ruled by a military dictatorship for the last four decades, has caught the Euro 2004 bug, with TV satellite dishes flying off the shelves faster than a Beckham free kick.

8220;We normally install four or five satellite dishes per week. But a few weeks before Euro 2004 started, sales went up to 10 to 15 a week,8221; said Khin Maung, owner of a satellite TV installation centre in the capital Yangon. Reuters