Functions and line digraphs

Consider two maps f and g from a set E into a set F such that f(x) ≠ g(x) for every x in E. Suppose that there exists a positive integer n such that for any element z in F either f^?1(z) or g^?1(z) has at most n elements. Then, E can be partitioned into 2n + 1 subsets E₁, E₂,…,E_{2n + 1} such that f(E_i)∩ g(E_i) = ?, 1 ≤ i ≤ 2n + 1. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 44: 296–303, 2003