Hundreds of Dutch fans had to watch their team's 2-1 win over the Ivory Coast in their underwear in Stuttgart on Friday after stewards at entry points to the stadium rumbled an ambush marketing ploy.
The Netherlands supporters all turned up in garish orange lederhosen displaying the name of Dutch brewery Bavaria and were ordered to remove them by stewards before being allowed to enter the Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion.
They then went into the match and watched it in their underwear.
Anheuser Busch's Budweiser is the official beer for the tournament and world soccer's governing body fiercely protects its sponsors from brands which are not FIFA partners.
Markus Siegler, FIFA's director of communications, said at its daily media briefing on Saturday that the governing body was alert to the kind of "ambush" marketing Bavaria had attempted and that certain measures had to be taken to contain such marketing.
"Of course, FIFA has no right to tell an individual fan what to wear at a match, but if thousands of people all turn up wearing the same thing to market a product and to be seen on TV screens then of course we would stop it," Siegler said. "If we have evidence there is a company behind this, and 100,000 people are being equipped accordingly, and there is a visible ambush on the television screens, then we have to take action."
"I don't know exactly about what happened in Stuttgart, but it seems like an organized attempt to conduct a mass ambush publicity campaign was taking place," he said.
Peer Swinkels of the Dutch brewery said it was "absolutely ridiculous" and "far too extreme" to order the fans to take off their lederhosen and said the brewery had complained to FIFA.
"I understand that FIFA has sponsors but you cannot tell people to strip off their lederhosen and force them to watch a game in their underpants. That is going too far," Swinkels said.
Dutch federation spokesman Frank Huizinga said that was grossly exaggerated.
"We are talking about a very limited amount of people who wanted to wear this," he said. "Let's not exaggerate this."
Several fans in the orange pants with the tail were seen outside the stadium, but almost all also had normal pants on under the hose.
No large groups of Dutch fans in underwear were visible among the 52,000 at the Stuttgart stadium, although one fan had ripped off the lion's tail and gladly waved it in public. The lion is the country's national emblem.
Huizinga said the action was taken by FIFA, which has long tried to counter ambush marketing at its premier event.
Dutch soccer fans traditionally don all things orange before games of their beloved "Oranje."
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