Strip game

Dutch fans had to take off their pants before the match

The sponsors of the World Cup literally left several fans of the Dutch national team, who were going to support their players during Friday's match in Stuttgart with the Ivory Coast team, without their pants. The appearance on the podium of a group of men in orange T-shirts, but without trousers, somewhat shocked even the Germans, who are considered supporters of free morals, but the reason for such extravagant behavior became clear after the Dutch victory with a score of 2:1. According to the BBC, fans from the Netherlands, dressed in the traditional orange costume, were not allowed to enter the Gottlieb Daimler Stadium by law enforcement officers who received orders from FIFA functionaries. On the leather pants of some fans - the so-called lederhosen - one of the vigilant football officials noticed the logo of the Dutch beer Bavaria, and advertising of any sponsor other than the official ones is prohibited by the championship regulations. One of the representatives of the brewing industry is the American company Anheuser Busch, which produces, in particular, the popular overseas Budweiser.

Having discovered bearers of the “partisan” logo with a lion’s tail in front of the entrance to the stadium, FIFA representatives tried to prevent “sabotage” against the official sponsor. And they demanded that fans wearing orange lederhosen be banned from entering the stands. It is not known what brand of drink the Dutch fans used to refresh themselves before the match with Côte d'Ivoire - sponsorship or "partisan", but it seems that it was widely accepted. In any case, none of the fans of Marco van Basten’s team had any doubts about what needed to be done. The fans simply took off their pants at the entrance and went to watch the football players play in their underwear. However, someone appears to have smuggled pants with a tail into the stadium - AP reports that among the 52,000 people in the stands, fans were seen waving the piece of clothing.

Perhaps this incident would have gone unnoticed (you never know how many fans strip down to their underwear in the stands, especially in such heat as it is now in Germany), if on Saturday the FIFA leadership had not issued a statement warning all fans of “partisan” advertising. "FIFA will not tell individual fans what to wear to a match, but if thousands of people show up wearing the same clothes promoting a product that will appear on television, then of course we will not allow that to happen," FIFA's director of communications said. with the public Markus Ziegler.

In turn, representatives of the Dutch Football Federation believe that international officials are making a mountain out of a mountain. Federation spokesman Frank Huizinga told the AP that "we are talking about a very small group of people who wanted to dress like that for the match." According to him, the vast majority of Dutch fans came to the stands in trousers and shorts without lion tails or logos. Or in extravagant costumes that do not carry an advertising load.

However, the debate about whether the action was planned or whether the fans really wore lederhosen without a second thought will apparently continue for a long time. Bavaria NV executives deny accusations of an illegal attempt to display their logo during one of the most advertising-intensive events and, moreover, reproach FIFA officials for disrespectful treatment of fans. "I understand that FIFA has sponsors, but you can't tell people to take off their lederhosen and force them to watch the game in their underpants," FIFA spokesman Peer Swinkels told Reuters. The Dutch brewers claim that they have already received complaints from fans who have encountered similar restrictions during qualifying matches.

Fedor SEREBRYANSKY