What’s the biggest threat to the Olympic Games? Corruption? Doping? Nope, it’s actually Pepsi. As Coca-Cola hold exclusive rights to advertising the Olympics, anyone bearing cans of Pepsi or Pepsi-branded clothing will be barred from Olympic venues. And that goes for any good displaying a logo that is not that of one of the offical sponsors, but would most stringently apply to their direct competitors. Ridiculous examples include Visa not allowing anyone to purchase tickets for the Games with a credit card other than their own (presumably in 2008 no-one will be allowed to use cash either), and athletes wearing Nike shoes having to change into Adidas ones when they get onto the podium (and no bare feet either!).

While no big fan of brands and such corporate nonsense, if people want to wear a brand of their choice when visiting a stadium, with a ticket they have paid for, then they should be free to do so. The Olympics are meant to be bringing the excellence of sport to the people - stadia are not some sort of prison where what you wear or say is restricted.

This report by a firm of lawyers offers an interesting history of the recent clampdown on any brand-related dissent (or “ambush marketing”, as it is curiously described - as if people get trapped in the woods and forcibly made to wear corporate logos). This one bit was news to me, though:

In relation to the Rugby World Cup 2003, the New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU) was unable to deliver ‘clean’ stadia (by which is meant stadia clear of all sponsor advertising) to the event organiser. As a result, the International Rugby Board and Rugby World Cup Ltd had no option but to remove NZRFU’s right to co-host the tournament with the Australian Rugby Union.

Though by the time the event came round, their Australian counterparts didn’t do too well in protecting the official telecommunications sponsor, Telstra:

Stewards at the Telstra Stadium in Sydney confiscated flags bearing the Vodafone logo (the sponsors of the Australian team) [...] The tournament organisers have tried to follow the example of the Sydney 2000 Olympics with somewhat less success than at that event, as it has proven to be virtually impossible to prevent a 15,000-strong scrum of England supporters entering a stadium wearing their England shirts emblazoned with the O2 logo.

While it’s almost too easy to accuse the IOC of being corrupted by wealth and in thrall to corporate sponsors (like shooting very fat fish in a barrel), so much so that it’s almost pointless to highlight stupdities like this, it reaches a point where even a cynic like me has to complain about the ridiculousness of it all. In the meantime, as the Games start in Athens this weekend, I will do my best to put the corruption and drug fiascoes behind me and enjoy the finest spectacle of sporting excellence of them all…by turning over and watching the start of the Premiership, that is. :-)