Soccer Portal

One of the biggest marketing faux pas of recent times occurred when a famous chain of stores in the United States, put out a line of World Cup 2010 t-shirts on sale. That all seems a bit harmless, but these t-shirts caused great offence to Spanish people, who spotted them in the stores. The World Cup t-shirts bore the Spanish flag for patriotic fans to wear with pride in support of their nation at South Africa 2010, but the problem was with the face which was superimposed on top of the flag. Some bright spark had the idea of putting a picture of General Franco on there, with the supposed intention of uniting the Spanish people. That would be like putting Mussolini on the Italian flag, or Hitler on the German flag. Franco was the dictator of Spain, running a fascist regime after being part of a political coup which came to power before the start of the Second World War. Franco named himself President and Head of State, and was not too understanding of anyone who did not practice Catholicism.

The biggest thing about this Franco oversight is just how many hands these t-shirts went through before even hitting the stores. Firstly, there must have been someone, perhaps a creative graphic designer, sat in front of computer somewhere who came up with the initial idea. That idea would have had to have been approved by the heads of the company. Then someone from the famous chain of stores would probably have spotted the t-shirt and thought that they were a good idea to put on sale. Either that or the t-shirts were actually commissioned in the first place. Either way, there must have been an executive decision made about these t-shirts at some point, as things generally need to be approved by marketing bigwigs, one suspects. So had did this faux pas get so far? Was it simply ignorance that let the face of Franco get so far? How did nobody in the chain of marketing spot, or understand, the implications of the offensive t-shirt design?

Maybe this is the distraction which besieged the Spaniards in their shock defeat to Switzerland. Was this all designed to throw the European Champions off their game? Is there a worldwide conspiracy going on to ensure that Spain to do not win the World Cup? It has even been suggested that Spanish Goalkeeper Iker Casillas was deliberately distracted before the match against Switzerland, as his girlfriend Sara Carbonero, who was once named the world’s sexiest journalist, started filming right behind his goal. How could that not distract him? The wives of girlfriends of the Spanish team are banned from being around the Spanish players, as they go for World Cup glory. So how did this second faux pas slip through the net? Whatever is going on with the Spanish, they need to regain some focus and composure, both on and off the pitch, if their World Cup is going to go on.

Sara Carbonero interviews Iker Casillas after loss to Switzerland.