World Cup fever no excuse for outdoor sex, Italian court rules`

An Italian couple who had sex outside has been found guilty - again - of obscene acts in public, the Reuters news agency reports.

An appeals court upheld the couple's previous guilty verdict, even though the pair argued they should not have been convicted because they scheduled their outdoor tryst for when the rest of their town was watching a World Cup soccer match on television.

The couple - then a 60-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman - was caught having sex outdoors in southern Italy in 2006 while the national team was playing a World Cup quarterfinal in Germany.

So, despite claiming they arranged their intimate encounter so as not to offend anyone, they lost again - this time before Rome's Court of Cassation, Italy's highest appeals court.

However, not all was lost.
For the record, Reuters reports that Italy's national team beat Ukraine that night, 3-0, and went on to win the World Cup.