Big Mac and Bud beat Germans to World Cup contracts

IT IS enough to make a German choke on his bratwurst and splutter into his stein.

The country famous for its beer and sausages has lost out to the United States on the contracts to supply both during the 2006 football World Cup.

Budweiser has been named the tournament’s official beer, while McDonald’s has won the monopoly on sausages for the competition, which Germany is hosting in two years’ time.

In the stadiums across the country where World Cup matches are being played, local firms are only allowed to do business if, according to the contract stipulations, they are "not competition for the sponsor".

The contract also states that local brews can only be sold outside a specific area around the stadium premises.

"That can’t be," complained Hermann Winkler, the president of the state of Saxony Sports Federation.

"A lot of breweries support sport in Saxony, but the minute there’s a little money to be earned, they’re left standing out in the cold."

Beer enthusiasts said they had little appetite for the American brew.

"I wouldn’t wash my car in it," said Ottmar Riesing, a Bavarian Beer Club member. "It’s bubble-gum beer."

However, Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Budweiser and Michelob beers, appears to have scored a winning goal with this business deal worth millions at all 12 stadiums where matches will be played.

The US multinational has tried for years to get a foothold in Germany, particularly with its Budweiser brand.

But since that name is also used in Europe by the Czech Budweiser brand - "a fine, fine beer," according to Mr Riesing - the Americans have repeatedly hit a brick wall.

That wall looks set to crumble in two years’ time.

Reinhard Zwanzig, who heads Saxony’s Brewers’ Federation, said the decision was regrettable, but he does not think the American Budweiser is going to find many of its own fans among the football ones.

"Afterwards, they’ll all go into town and toast the victors with the regional beer," he said.

The US beer invasion is likely to be felt most keenly in Bavaria, the home to two World Cup stadiums and the venue for Munich’s Oktoberfest, the world’s largest beer festival.

A spokeswoman for the region’s culture ministry said that her office was calling for talks with FIFA to try to find a compromise.

The spokeswoman added that the Bavarian World Cup steering committee had discussed the matter and was checking the contract to see if it allowed some room for manoeuvre.

Franz Maget, a Bavarian politician, said that FIFA had sold the exclusive rights to Anheuser-Busch for 40 million (27 million).

He said officials in Munich and Nuremberg - home to the region’s two World Cup venues - planned "fan villages" outside the stadiums where "proper products" would be sold.

In another blow to German culinary pride, Mr Maget said that the US fast-food chain McDonald’s had bought the right to sausage sales.