In celebration of a South African airline and a Dutch beer.

Until this week I had never heard of Bavaria beer. Apparently it’s Dutch. No idea what it taste like. Whether it’s a bitter or lager, sweet or sour.

I had heard of Kulula, although I haven’t ever flown with them, but that’s only because I’ve taken a few domestic flights in South Africa over the past few years. They all have slightly ridiculous names (Seriously, who in their right mind takes an airline called 1time? I don’t care if it’s a South African phrase. To everyone else it suggests you wouldn’t want to use it twice.)

But Kulula, along with Bavaria, are now two of my favourite companies. Both have angered Fifa which has rather pompously accused them of “ambush marketing”.

Kulula tried to get round Fifa’s ridiciulous rules, which ban pretty much everyone from even mentioning the words “2010 World Cup” unless they are an official sponsor, by publishing an advert claiming it was the “unofficial airline of you-know-what”. Fifa wasn’t happy and went to court to ban the ad. Kulula, as David Goldblatt pointed out on his excellent World Cup blog for Prospect, have now upped their campaign, inviting Sepp Blatter to fly for free for “the duration of the thing that’s happening right now”. All he has to do is send a polite little email to iamseppblatter@kulula.com

Bavaria’s crime was to send 36 women in bright orange mini-dresses to Monday’s Netherlands v Denmark match at Soccer city. The women’s dresses didn’t have any logos but apparently Fifa’s fashion experts/marketing officials thought television viewers in the Netherlands would recognise the dresses as a Bavaria promotion. No, I don’t get it either.

Of course, neither the Kulula ads or the Bavaria stunt would have got any attention if it hadn’t been for Fifa’s bizarre over-reaction. So either there are people within Fifa who secretly hate the way they have sold the soul of football and are willing to undermine all the corporate sponsors one by one… or Fifa’s marketing department is a bit clueless.