Leave the lederhosen at home. That is the message one can take away from the Dutch fans after hundreds of them were told to take off their orange lederhosen displaying the name of Dutch brewery Bavaria before entering the stadium in Stuttgart for their team’s match against Ivory Coast. The fans watched the game in their underwear. Talk about a distraction for the fully clothed fans and players alike! The lederhosen brigade was part of an ambush marketing effort sponsored by the Dutch brewery Bavaria. As is usually the case, FIFA went to full lengths to protect its sponsors’ good (or bad) names. In this case the sponsor being Anheuser Busch’s Budweiser, the official beer of the World Cup. Markus Siegler, FIFA’s director of communications, said: “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. This isn’t the first time the Dutch have tried covert, ambush marketing in the name of their nation’s beer. During the 2004 European Championships, hundreds of fans were forced to remove megaphone hats bearing the name Heineken. That led to an online marketing campaign this year featuring a unique way to sneak in those Heineken hats. I’m all in favor of this type of ambush marketing. Next time the Dutch fans should all wear underwear with Bavaria or Heineken written on it. What will FIFA do, make them watch the games naked? Now that is a thought…. source: http://www.worldcupblog.org/world-cup-2006/dutch-fans-watch-game-in-nothing-but-underwear.html