Football’s governing body, The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) have found more cases of copyright infringement related to next year’s World Cup in Brazil than it did a year before South Africa hosted sports’ most-watched event in 2010.

FIFA have taken action against roughly 100 companies in the last six months alone who do not have permission to use protected words or logos relating to the World Cup.

Auke-Jan Bossenbroek, FIFA’s legal counsel responsible for protecting the Zurich-based organization’s trademarks has said that so far all of the cases have been resolved and the majority of the incidents involved small companies and did not require legal action.

Bossenbroek said, ‘while the majority of cases have been solved by a phone call, there have been instances of large corporations trying to use the popularity of the World Cup in marketing material and promotional activity.’

FIFA have sold sponsorship rights for the month-long event to 20 companies including Coca Cola and Hyundai. It is due to the significant investments of these 20 partners (estimated at around $1.4 billion) that FIFA are so keen to protect their trade marks from unlawful use.

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