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Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Two Dutch women were arrested in their underwear in Roodepoort, western Johannesburg, yesterday morning for having worn orange mini-dresses, sponsored by a Dutch beer company, at a soccer match.
The two, Mirte Nieuwpoort and Barbara Castelein, appeared at a closed hearing in the special World Cup court at the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court yesterday afternoon.
They face "three possible charges including the Contravention of the Merchandise Marks Act and the contravention of two sections of the Special Measures Regulation," the police said.
They were each released on R10000 bail and their passports were confiscated. They were members of a group of women who had worn the orange dresses to the Holland-Denmark game at Soccer City, near Soweto, on Monday.
Fifa officials complained that the wearing of the dresses was advertising for Dutch brewery Bavaria. The company reportedly gave the dresses away, with cases of its beer, in the run-up to the tournament.
Dutch embassy spokesman, Christoph Prommersberger, said: "We think it's disproportionate that two ladies have been arrested for wearing orange dresses at a football stadium."
Prommersberger said that if Fifa "had a problem" with a company, charges should have been brought against the company and not the two women "who might face time in jail".
He said representatives of the brewers were at court and had paid the women's litigation costs.
The Merchandise Marks Act was amended in 2006 as the "government fulfilled its guarantee to protect Fifa's intellectual property rights and prevent ambush marketing by designating the World Cup as a protected event," the government's World Cup website says.
The 2006 Special Measures Act defines the exclusion zones in which commercial activities cannot take place without Fifa permission.
It is all just tantamount to bullying and been so darn greedy that you wont let one cent slip past you!
