Mascot gang set to cash in on cup

By PHIL SHAW

Move over Pokemon. A garishly coloured, three-pronged strikeforce of mascots have been launched for next year's World Cup soccer finals in South Korea and Japan.

Ato, Nik and Kaz are coming to a burger bar near you.

The trio of computer-animated characters, dreamed up by London firm Interbrand, were unleashed on a nonplussed planet at a ceremony in Seoul.

Later, in a ketchup-flavoured taste of things to come, figures representing them mingled with customers at a nearby McDonald's.

T-shirts, caps, badges and key-rings bearing their images will follow.

Ato, Nik and Kaz were named after a poll organised by the South Koreans in which 980,000 votes were cast over the internet and at fast-food outlets.

According to Fifa, football's world governing body, the mascots come from a fantasy family of spiky-headed beings called Spheriks (as in spheres).

They live in the sky in a place called Atmozone, where they play their own version of the bountiful game, known as Atmoball.

The futuristic threesome's descent to Earth signals a sea-change in the sporting spinoff business, which has clearly heeded the licence-to-print-money success of the Pokemon television show and forsaken the tradition of cute, often cuddly, frequently furry, yet unmistakably friendly mascots.

That South Korea should be instrumental in launching Ato, Nik and Kaz should be no surprise. The practice of using cartoon figures to market public and private bodies is widespread there.

The Seoul police, whose idea of public relations often appears to amount to going out and baton-charging the public, recently launched a grinning, ape-like mascot dressed as one of its officers (but without the teargas gun).

It is known as Podori - not to be confused with Hodori, the cartoon tiger that was the symbol of the 1988 Olympics in the Korean capital.

Not that the English can afford to scoff. For as well as giving the world soccer, they were responsible in 1966 for World Cup Willie, the first such mascot.

Sporting a Union Jack waistcoat, he was also lionised in song by Lonnie Donegan, although the single failed to make the charts.

In Willie's wake came a cast of characters ranging from the stereotypical to the surreal and downright silly.

The next hosts, Mexico, had Juanito, an urchin who played football in a sombrero.

Germany gave us the horribly wholesome Tip and Tap.

Argentina offered not a goose-stepping general but Gauchito, a bandy-legged boy fresh from rounding up strays on the Pampas.

And a grinning orange named Naranjito became the face of Spain.

Second time around, Mexico went for Pique, a red-hot chilli pepper.

Italy had the red, white and green, Lego-style matchstick man called Ciao, who had a ball for a head.

The United States came up with Striker, who resembled a distant cousin of Huckleberry Hound.

Lastly, the French, showing all their characteristic imagination, produced a cockerel named Footix.

Whether there will be new England and Scotland mascots may depend on whether either or both qualify for the finals.

England do not have much to beat - remember the ill-conceived Bulldog Bobby? - while the Scots have remained resolutely old-fashioned with Sandy, Roary Superscot the Lion and McMex.

But now Ato, Nik and Kaz, a vision in gaudy yellow, blue and purple, may have shifted the global goalposts.

- INDEPENDENT