Olympics organising committee LOCOG has courted further controversy by announcing a new sponsorship deal which will see the word ‘Olympic’ appear only in officially-sanctioned dictionaries.
The move comes just hours after Visa were criticised for removing 27 ATMs around the London 2012 venue because they didn’t belong to them, an official sponsor.
A LOCOG spokesperson said, “We’re delighted with this latest deal, and that the word ‘Olympic’ will be available to those dictionary users who choose to work with our partners.”
“And from tomorrow all public conversations that include the word ‘Olympics’ or ‘London 2012′ will be subject to a licensing fee of £10.”
“Organising an olympics doesn’t come cheap, and we’ve still got a few billion to try and recoup.”
Olympic sponsorship
Londoner Mike Williams spoke of his anger at the news, claiming he had been given an 0n the spot fine for discussing London 2012 on his lunch-break.
“All I said was that I’d got tickets and that I was looking forward to it, and then this alarm went off and a LOCOG official came up and asked for a copy of my Olympic conversation licence.”
“I didn’t have one, obviously, and was told that from now on I could not use any trademark term to refer to the ‘summer of sporting activities in our capital city taking place between the years 2011 and 2013′.”
“Still, so long as we look after the multinational sponsors, eh?”
