Amoruso gets speeding penalty

Amoruso was travelling to a shooting trip

A Rangers footballer thought to earn £25,000 a week has been fined for speeding - and told to pay the penalty at £25 per week.

Italian defender Lorenzo Amoruso was fined when he appeared at Perth District Court on Wednesday.

Amoruso, who joined the Ibrox club from Fiorentina in a £4.2m deal, was clocked driving at 92mph on the notorious A9 dual carriageway.

The player, who has an Italian driving licence, admitted the charge in a letter to the court.

This was a serious lapse of concentration for which I am very sorry

Lorenzo Amoruso

He said that he was "unable, for contractual reasons connected to my profession" to give details of his salary.

It is believed that a new contract which will keep him with Rangers until 2004 earns him in the region of £1m per season.

However, Justice of the Peace Neil Muir told the court that Amoruso could pay his fine at £25 per week.

"I will endorse his licence with four penalty points and impose a fine of £260," he said.

Amoruso, of Bearsden, was caught during a Tayside Police crackdown on speeding on the road, which has claimed more than a dozen lives this year.

Rising speed

He had been travelling to meet Perth-based friends for a shooting trip when he was stopped near Auchterarder.

The 30-year-old footballer was driving a Rangers-registered vehicle, a £16,000 Y-registration Honda H-RV.

Amoruso said he had not noticed his speed rising as he drove towards Perth from his home on the outskirts of Glasgow.

"This was a serious lapse of concentration for which I am very sorry," he wrote in his letter to the court.

"I have been in Scotland for five years and this is the first time something like this has happened."