British psychologists have discovered that footballers are sucessfull in direct proportion to the length of their ring fingers. It sounds a bit far fetched a but a little bit of research into the history of footballer's finger lengths seems to confirm the study's findings. It's a little known fact that Bobby Moore, the finest footballer England ever produced, had a ring finger so long that, as a youth, he was arrested under suspicion of being a witch. In fact,  if you study the famous picture of him holding the world cup aloft in 1966, you'll notice his ring finger wrapped around the trophy six times.

Pele's ring finger is so long that he would occasionally distract the opposition's goalkeeper by tapping him on the shoulder - while standing on the edge of his own six yard box at the the other end of the pitch. Diego Maradonna's ring finger was almost twice the length of his entire body and he would have to fold it down and bandage it during matches in accordance with Fifa rules. In today's bling-bling era, star players  flaunt their freakishly long digits with more pride:  off the field, Cristiano Ronaldo often wears up to forty six diamond ring on a single, four foot long finger. Of course, this study also finally explains the great irony of why talented footballers are so rubbish at Subbuteo.