The Emperor's New Phone Number

66 66 66 66.

That's the phone number Beckenbauer requested when company officials offered him free choice in addition to an annual salary of €2 million ($2.4 million) for promoting their mobile phone service.

Realizing the risks posed by Beckenbauer's pick, some tried to persuade him to rethink his decision. But the Kaiser, or emperor, as Beckenbauer is called reverentially by his countrymen, didn't want to listen.

It wasn't a very clever thing to do.

Beckenbauer soon started receiving calls from random men, who had dialled his number hoping to end up at a phone sex line.

When another lust-driven caller woke him up at 2:30 a.m., Beckenbauer finally admitted his mistake and called the company to change the number.