World Cup: Beats headphones banned by FIFA

A craze among celebrities and sportsmen, headphones from Beats Audio were banned from this World cup by FIFA. The decision was taken after a complaint from the Sony, the company that sponsors the tournament and competes with Beats on the headphones market.

Os headphones da Beats are the favorites of many of the world's top players, making the Cup a huge unofficial advertising campaign for the company acquired by Apple last month for the incredible amount of US$ 3 billion (about R$ 6,5 billion). Neymar uses a green model to match the colors of Brazil, Wayne Rooney, from England, has a white one and Luis Suárez, a blue one.

According to the rules of FIFA, players must remove them when in stadiums in the World cup for official matches and press events. THE Beats Audio is known for using “guerrilla marketing” tactics to overcome licensing barriers.

During the London Olympics, in 2012, the company sent thousands of free headphones to top athletes, such as the United States basketball team and the entire English delegation, deceiving the Panasonic, official sponsor.

A five minute video showing Neymar, Suarez, the German Mario Goetze, the Dutch Robin van Persie, the mexican Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez and other players using headphones from beats, released days before World cup, was seen by 10,6 million people in the YouTube. Check out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_i3Lcjli84

A Sony even tried to copy the rival's strategy and sent a set of headphones to the players participating in the World cup. But so far, few have been seen with the accessories!

Interested? Check out the List of the best headphones, recently released by the Times.