Mascot needed for 2010 soccer spectacular

By Lebogang SealeFifa is awaiting proposals for South Africa 2010's official mascot, and now is your chance to use your creativity to design the symbol that will represent the first tournament on African soil.Since the start of the soccer World Cup in 1966, Fifa has used mascots as symbols to represent each of the tournaments staged in subsequent years.Derived from the French word mascotte, mascot is a term for any person, animal or object thought to give something a public identity - often believed to bring luck. It is mostly used in schools or by professional sports teams and military units as a brand.


The mascot designs show some representation of characteristic features such as costume or flora and fauna of the host country. The World Cup mascot is mostly targeted at children, with cartoon shows and other merchandise released to coincide with the tournament. During the inaugural World Cup, held in England in 1966, World Cup Willie, depicting a lion - a typical symbol of the United Kingdom - wearing a Union Jack jersey with the words "World Cup", was used as the official mascot.Some of the popular mascots used since then include the Ciao (for the Italian greeting) during the 1990 World Cup. It portrayed a stick figure player with a football head and an Italian tricolore body.When the US hosted the competition in 1994, a dog wearing red, white and blue football kit with the words "USA" was the official symbol.In France in 1998, a cockerel, one of the national symbols of France, with the words "France 98" on the chest (with its body mostly in the national team's blue colours), was the official mascot.More recently, when Germany hosted the 2006 World Cup, a lion wearing a German shirt with the number 06 and a talking football named Pille - a German colloquial term for football - was used.