Samsung makes most of India's outstanding show
Sunday, March 23 2003 13:20 Hrs (IST)

New Delhi: An individual sponsor in conflict with an official ICC sponsor on Sunday found an innovative way to break its promise not to use cricketers' images during the World Cup.

Electronics giant Samsung could not resist the temptation of an India-Australia final and placed advertisements in newspapers cheering on India in the big match.

Samsung's advertisements appeared with shadow cutouts of its seven contracted Indian players along with the slogan reading, "Not just us, one billion Indians would be part of Team Samsung today (Sunday)."

The seven Indian cricketers who have individual contracts with Samsung are Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Javagal Srinath, Dinesh Mongia, Mohammed Kaif and Anil Kumble.

The ICC has already expressed concern over the ambush marketing activities of Samsung, which issued advertisements in newspapers at the start of the World Cup in southern Africa.

By not using the images of players but just the outline of their bodies, Samsung is flirting with legalities as the same "Team Samsung" slogan was used with images of players before and at the start of the World Cup.

Samsung was among the individual sponsors who agreed not to use images of players during the World Cup after a compromise was reached between the ICC and Indian cricketers.

The Indian players had earlier refused to sign the contracts that prohibited ambush marketing for 30 days before, during and after the World Cup. The ICC backed down and did away with the period before and after the tournament, but insisted ambush marketing would not be allowed during the tournament.

The cricket world governing body has said it would refer such infringements to its technical committee.

Copyright AFP 2001

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