2010 World Cup Cultural Dunce Awards

I’d like to take a moment to congratulate Spain,
for being the 2010 champions of the fútbol game.
I’ve only recently begun to learn the rules and such,
and can’t say that I watch the game all that much…
but I admire their athleticism and pride for the nation,
and wish them a very memorable, elite celebration.

Perhaps now that Spain has won the cup at least once,
we can all work on not looking like a cultural dunce.
The referees have already begun to study up on foul lingo,
though it can’t be easy to learn the cuss words all 36 teams know.
Maybe they’ll never know them all, but at least they are trying…
and they do it all while legs, feet and fútbols are flying.

FIFA had plenty of time to plan each press conference,
but still were caught for a bit of translation negligence…
Apparently they confused Slovak with Slovene,
which the Slovenian team found to be a bit mean.
And the reporters had to deal with sporadic translation,
causing innocent slip-ups and some humiliation.

Even funnier are the lingual mistakes on promotional merchandise,
which can wreck the value of a souvenirs that would’ve been nice.
This year, Korea goofed up their official fan jersey,
“Korea Legend – Begin to 2010” makes no sense to me.
Then again, it could be fun to wear while out on a stroll,
and it might provide a good laugh in a funny t-shirt poll.

I certainly hope that for tournament number twenty,
FIFA will provide free translation services aplenty.
After all, it’s the world’s most widely watched game,
let's promote world peace through FIFA’s good name.
Of course, they could always promote the comedic feel,
Perhaps FIFA wants to produce a blooper reel…

Or maybe we should try having a universal language of Football,
learning to speak Socceranto could be the whole world's goal.
But we'd need to invent a bunch more words to use,
when the coaches & players do their interviews.
But who knows if FIFA is even looking to change,
they may think all options seem a bit strange.

© Rachel Hoyt 2010 - 2011

(Thank you globilization-group.com for inspiring this poem.)