The art of swearing in foreign languages

This is disappointingly vague and over-simplistic. The Guardian reports:

"An Italian lip-reader last night claimed to have deciphered the words Marco Materazzi said to Zinédine Zidane that provoked the French captain into butting him in the chest during Sunday's World Cup final, the great midfielder's final act before a red card ended his career in top-level football.
According to the BBC, Materazzi said, "I wish an ugly death to you and all your family," and then told Zidane to "go fuck yourself".
A Paris-based anti-racism group, SOS-Racism, earlier said that "several very well informed sources" had suggested Zidane was called a "dirty terrorist".

We need first to decide if Mr Materazzi swore at Mr Zidane in Italian or French. I do not know if Mr Zidane understands Italian nor if Mr Materazzi has sufficient French to curse him in the manner suggested.

Even if they had established a "lingua franca", as it were, the translation of insults, particularly insults involving swearing, offers all sorts of difficulties. For example, the verbs in French which are the nearest equivalent to the English 'fuck' are 'baiser' and 'se foutre' but neither could be regarded as a direct translation; nor do they necessarily carry the same shock quotient. Thus 'fous-moi la paix' is not quite the same as 'fuck off'. I am not an expert in Italian but the same considerations apply.

Perhaps we will learn more in due course.

Update:

The Independent has a rather more believable story:

"An insult about Zinedine Zidane's sister from Marco Materazzi is understood to have provoked the Frenchman's extraordinary headbutt for which he was sent off in Sunday's World Cup final. The Italian was also forced yesterday to deny he called Zidane, whose parents are Algerian immigrants, a " dirty terrorist".
While Zidane is expected to clear up the debate within the next week by revealing what was said to him at the Olympiastadion in Berlin on Sunday the clues are now pointing towards a remark about the Frenchman's sister, Lila.
It was a confrontation that began with Materazzi grabbing Zidane's shirt. It is alleged that Zidane responded by sarcastically telling Materazzi that he could have his shirt as a souvenir at the end of the match. The Italian is alleged to have responded by saying that Zidane could keep it for his sister and then made an extremely derogatory comment about her ­ that version is backed up by lip-readers from the Brazilian TV channel Globo. They claim Materazzi called her a "prostitute"."

The supposed insult with reference to a sister is of some antiquity in Romance languages. Indeed, it is no longer necessary to call the sister a prostitute. A simple 'et ta soeur...' is sufficiently insulting to offend deeply most Latin men, whether they actually have a sister or not.