FIFA World Cup Mascot Brings Company to Financial Disaster

The mascot for the World Cup in Germany is giving quite some headaches to the company that put it on the market.

With less than 6 weeks until the start of the German World Cup, it seems that nobody is interested in buying the mascot of the competition. NICI, the Bavarian producer in charge with the mascot contract is filing for bankruptcy after being unable to cover the losses.

The situation arose, most likely, because the mascot does not represent a German specific symbol. If it were an eagle, NICI wouldn't have had any trouble in selling the items. But the football-kit-wearing lion certainly made German fans look the other way. Not only that, but the lion symbolizes the main rival's football federation, England. It's not a secret that England and Germany have never liked each other.

Before the football season began, NICI gave it their best shot to sign the deal with FIFA. They allegedly paid about 28 million euros to have exclusivity over the World Cup mascot. But things seem to be more complicated than that. After noticing that the media has brought this subject into the public eye long enough, FIFA officials issued a statement earlier this week, in which the International Board deny the 28 million euros deal with NICI. In fact, FIFA announced the official sum of the transaction being "about 10 times lower than appearing in the media these days".