GREEK finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has expressed astonishment that the EU is still asking for the money he gave back in the pub weeks ago.

The Greek says he cannot recall the exact date but it was the day Bradford beat Chelsea.

Varoufakis said: “I gave Merkel a big wedge of cash that night. Ask the Belgians, they’ll tell you.”

Angela Merkel confirmed that this was the case, but she said the money was “just so I could get his round in for him. He was sat in the corner and couldn’t get out because Francoise Hollande and his girlfriend were having a row at the next table.

“The previous Greek government said they gave the money to my husband to give me when they bumped into him outside a cinema just after Christmas. They must think I was born yesterday.”

EU commission leader Jose Manuel Barosso backed Merkel: “If it was a loan repayment he should have got a receipt.”

Varoufakis responded that he had, but that he had washed his jeans the next day, and it must have been in the back pocket because everything in that load had little bits of paper stuck on it.