“Fick Fufa” sentiment is spreading as the world football governing body continues to clamp down on small entrepreneurs while huge corporations appear immune from Fifa president Sepp Blatter’s wrath.
Another splenetic anti-Fifa T-shirt has appeared since the Mail & Guardian reported last week on “Fick Fufa” slogans being worn on torsos in Cape Town, expressing growing resentment at Fifa’s draconian enforcement of its iron marketing rules.
Also originating in the Mother City, the new T-shirt appears to say “MAFIFA” but its design encourages the reading “MAFIA” and renders the slogan’s second line open to dissident interpretation: “We own the Game”.
As with the “Fick Fufa” shirt, the creator fears the reach of Blatter’s power enough to protect his daytime job under the cover of anonymity. And he too told the M&G he is not interested in making a profit (though he is now printing more because of popular demand). Rather, he is making “a small statement”: “I hope we didn’t sign away our fundamental rights, especially freedom of expression,” he said.
At the opposite end of the financial muscle parade, Absa sponsors Bafana Bafana but is not a Fifa-approved 2010 World Cup “National Supporter”.
This is one of three Fifa categories comprising the favoured many who pump megabucks into Blatter’s coffers and are listed in the full-colour, 19-page, glossy brochure that Media South Africa (Fifa) sent the M&G in response to the paper’s queries.
The other two categories are “Fifa Partners” (such as Adidas and Coca-Cola) and “Sponsors” (such as Budweiser — not the rash Dutch beer whose logo, about 5mm wide, appeared on the hems of the orange minidresses of the 36 young women detained last week).
Local bank FNB is a Fifa “National Supporter”. But Absa’s World Cup-linked saturation marketing has escaped even a frown from Blatter.
“We do not believe in ambush marketing,” Happy Ntshingila, Absa’s chief marketing and communication officer, told the M&G. “Absa respects FNB’s space as an official 2010 sponsor.”
And if people assume Absa is a sponsor as well? “That is an unintended consequence,” Ntshingila said.
Other heavyweight but non-Fifa-approved corporations with World Cup-related ad campaigns so far unmolested by Blatter include Nike, Pepsi and Kit Kat.
But back in the lightweight division, Port Elizabeth restaurateur Chris van Heerden learned who’s who last week when city authorities, citing Fifa bylaws, ordered him to remove a window poster showing a soccer ball on which he had hand-painted the numerals “2010”.
Reporting the incident, IOL noted that the poster had been in Van Heerden’s restaurant window since October last year.
“Fifa is not preventing small local businesses benefiting from the increased activity during the Event Period,” Media SA (Fifa) told the M&G, before going on to detail the “non-aggressive”, “lenient”, “educational” and “friendly” steps it takes regarding small business owners and informal traders who haven’t read its 19-page glossy brochure.