Pope Francis Gets Jersey No 10, As FIFA Officials Pay Him Visit at the Vatican [PHOTOS]

Pope Francis has been given FIFA Jersey Number 10 with his name emblazoned on it by the president of the Federation of International Football, Sepp Blatter during a visit to the Pope in the Vatican, during which he presented 0 to the popular pope.

The 76 year old Pope is said to have a football passion, having been born in Argentina, as a son of Italian parents. He has been a life-long supporter of the Argentine football team, San Lorenzo de Almagro football club, based in the Boedo neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. The club plays in the Primera División, the top division of the Argentine football league system.

“We spoke the same language and it was language of football,” Blatter said. “It was really a meeting between two sportsmen and two football fans.”

Blatter said he responded to the pope’s request for FIFA to help the favelas, or slums, of Rio de Janeiro during the 2014 World Cup, with a promise to “do what we can.”

“We cannot do everything,” Blatter said.

The soccer-mad Francis, a longtime member of his beloved San Lorenzo club in Buenos Aires, has amassed an impressive collection of soccer jerseys as gifts from visiting teams and players.

The two also unwittingly wound up confronting the relative strength in the numbers of active participants in their institutions, with those involved in football, including players and their families, slightly outnumbering Roman Catholics worldwide.

“We have 1.2 billion people and (the pope) said, ‘I have no more than 1 billion,’” Blatter said with a laugh.

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