Since 1966 every World Cup tournament has its own mascot that usually is a type of cartoon character wearing traditional to each host country clothes and accessories. The World Cup Mascots usually target the younger generations, appearing in different kids shows promoting football and various merchandise. World Cup Willie was the first ever World Cup Mascot especially created for the 1966 competition in England. In 1970 a Mexican boy named Juanito was the official mascot, followed by also two young boys called Tip & Tap for the World Cup in West Germany. The last boy-like mascot appeared in 1978 for Argentina, his name was Gauchito and was wearing traditional hat and clothes. Naranjito the orange was the mascot of Spain, and Pique the pepper of Mexico in 1982 and 1986 respectively, the two fruit inspired mascots of the 80′s. Italy presented Ciao, a tricolore stick figure mascot for the 1990 World Cup. Striker the World Cup Pup for the United States in 94, Footix the rooster in 98 from France, The Spheriks Ato, Kaz and Nik for Korea, and Goleo the 6th for Germany 2006.
The official mascot of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa is Zakumi the leopard, a popular animal of the continent. Zakumi was born on June 16 1994 (youth day), his green and yellow/gold colours match the nation’s football uniforms. South African artist Andries Odendaal from the city of Cape Town created the mascot specifically for the tournament. Apparently a lot of controversy surrounds the process when media discovered that a 120 million dollar contract to build these dolls was outsourced to China instead of a local company. People were outraged by this event that costed thousands of jobs in a country were the unemployment rate is well over 24%
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