From the BBC (link courtesy Jon Solomon)

Zinedine Zidane’s infamous World Cup headbutt has inspired a song that, thanks to the internet, has rocketed to the top of the French pop charts.

Just hours after the song’s producers had e-mailed it to friends they got a flood of calls from the music industry and mobile phone companies.

The hit was written as a “joke… to entertain our friends,” said Sebastien Lipszyc of La Plage Records in Paris.

The small studio e-mailed the song the day after France lost to Italy.

Mr Lipszyc, whose company composes advertising jingles and sound-effects, said Coup de Boule (Headbutt) was written “in half an hour” and e-mailed to about 50 friends. That evening, he and his two colleagues heard it on Skyrock, a popular French radio network

“The next day, the major players rang us,” said Mr Lipszyc, quoted by the French newspaper Le Figaro.

The African-style song has become a tube de l’été (summer hit) in France, booming out at beaches, campsites and bars.