FIFA bullies target Kulula
March 12, 2010
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According to Kulula it has been targeted by FIFA for its ad on being the ‘Unofficial National Carrier of the ‘You Know What.” The low cost airline recently challenged other carriers to keep their fares low during the FIFA World Cup in June and July this year.
News broke on its official Twitter account (@kulula) with the following post; “oh dear letter from FIFA’s lawyers says we broke their trademark of the use of “South Africa” and think our non-WC ad was about soccer…”
Apparently the lawyers are objecting not only to the use of “South Africa” but also to the use of soccer balls and the image of a stadium. Even use of the our national flag was an issue.
It is absolutely outrageous. We have signed over our country, its symbols and our economy to one ‘Sepp’ Blatter. Nasty.
Oh this is going a bit too far. I can guess who the attorneys are …
As much as I share the outrage at FIFA, it still gets me why South Africans get upset at FIFA since this is standard practice with every recent World Cup they’ve held.
This FIFA World F*ck is just such an annoyance. I honestly think it will do more harm in the long run than good. It has created an artificial economic bubble or buffer that will implode when it does FIFA will be long gone and so will our budgets for the country with it all having been spent on white elephants, entertaining delegates, soccer players and yes government officials.
The people that benefiting from this event are the contractors those who built the stadiums, got the road contracts and so on. The hotels will do decent but I know many of them are foreign owned anyway – read many of the B&B’s. In the mean time everyone who doesn’t earn a fortune will suffer. Price hikes will kill the local market and then the world cup will be hate.
For god sakes its just some girls kicking balls around on a field, we have far more important things to worry and care about. Like the environment, what do you guys think the carbon cost will be of this event. It is huge!!!
I love that Kulula add, I travel exclusively on Kulula for my local flights because they are a company worth supporting.