Jermain Defoe's devotion to his girlfriend cost him a suspension when he was booked for removing his shirt to reveal a message to her after scoring for Tottenham against Middlesbrough last month. In line with Fifa's edict on punishing the crime of garment removal Defoe saw yellow and subsequently missed his next game which earned a reprimand from Spurs' head coach Martin Jol.

Defoe escaped lightly. On Sunday the Servette midfielder Paulo Diogo paid a far heavier price for his romantic obligations.

Diogo jumped up on a metal perimeter fence to salute the travelling fans in celebration of setting up his team's third goal for Jean Beauséjour in the 87th minute of their 4-1 away win over Schaffhausen in the Swiss Super League.

The Swiss-Portuguese, who only recently married, failed to notice that his newly-obtained wedding ring was caught in the barrier until he jumped back down and both the ring and most of his finger did not come with him.

But that was not the end of his suffering. With Diogo in obvious pain and distress the game was held up while match stewards took part in a frantic search to retrieve the finger, which did not impress the referee Florian Etter one little bit.

Despite Diogo's misfortune the 29-year-old midfielder got no sympathy from Etter and was promptly booked by the official for the length of his celebration.

Diogo's terrible night was capped when surgeons at a Zurich hospital admitted they were unable to re-attach his severed digit and advised the amputation of the remaining stump.

Surprisingly Diogo is not the first footballer to suffer a freak injury after celebrating a goal scored by someone else.

In 1997 Chelsea's Nigerian defender Celestine Babayaro broke his leg after performing a post-goal backward somersault on his debut in a pre-season match against Stevenage Borough.

The injury meant he did not make his first-team debut until the following October against Slovan Bratislava in the European Cup Winners' Cup.