PARIS, July 10: France captain Zinedine Zidane was apparently called a “dirty terrorist” by Marco Materazzi before he head-butted the Italy defender in Sunday's World Cup final, the anti-racism group SOS Racism said on Monday.

“According to several very well informed sources from the world of football, it would seem that the Italian player Marco Materazzi called Zinedine Zidane a 'dirty terrorist',” SOS Racism said in a statement.

The Paris-based group called for an inquiry and said world soccer's governing body FIFA had recently toughened sanctions against racism.

Meanwhile, Materazzi denied the report.

“It is absolutely not true, I did not call him a terrorist. I'm ignorant. I don't even know what the word means,” the

Italian news agency Ansa quoted Materazzi as saying after the Italian team returned to Rome.

“The whole world saw what happened on live TV,” he added.

—Reuters