Men Without Pants
To protect the rights of the official beer they were denied entry, so the male fans promptly removed the trousers and watched the game in underpants.
The BBC asserts that up to 1,000 fans were told to strip off their orange pants in “Fans Lose Trousers to Gain Entry.” Markus Siegler, the control-freak in charge of press for FIFA, said:
“Of course, FIFA has no right to tell an individual fan what to wear at a match, but if thousands of people all turn up wearing the same thing to market a product and to be seen on TV screens then of course we would stop it.”
Of course. That doesn’t make it normal or right. You do have to appreciate a nation which prefers nudity on their TV screens to advertising. Of course, FIFA is trying to minimize the numbers, and invent the term “ambush marketing” to make it seem unusual that there’s marketing involved in a sports event.
I tried to find a good picture, but this is a family blog.
It looks like the Dutch kept their pants on, but only removed their trousers. Slight translation to American English there 🙂
For the Dutch, and probably all the mainland Europeans, this would go unnoticed. Even full nudity is fairly mild in the press, with often full frontals being displayed on billboards and the like, and various festivals and appearances featuring nudity. A few months ago, the politicians in Europe had to make a half-hearted effort to appear shocked at the poster art that appeared around one city, showing various heads of state in copulatory positions with each other.
The British like to be titillated about this, which is why they reported it. They’re jealous, they want the pride of being able to do such things, but Queen Victoria still rides in the dark corners of every Brit’s subconciousness. She is left behind when they fly to Benidorm, though.