Whoring The Brand

It’s World Cup time. Football. Getting fresh air and exercise. Better health for all those couch potatoes. So you’d think that the kind of product associated with the competition would be in tune with this particular zeitgeist.

Wrong.

The official restaurant of the 2010 FIFA World Cup is, and I’m not in sick joke mode here, McDonald’s.

Er, hello? Just exactly how many of the England squad would go near the place? A very round number, that’s how many. Could FIFA really do no better than to lend their name to the world’s most notorious purveyors of Jumbo Offalfurters?

Maybe the endorsement is looking to appeal to a certain kind of fan. In Crewe, that would mean those who visit the WaddleThru (tm) on Macon Way. Yes, I can picture them now – car adorned with an unfeasibly large number of Ingerlundflags, one or more of the occupants in a state of advanced circumferential challengement, pining for their fix of low grade junk.

It actually makes commercial sense. In a sick and exploitative kind of way.