ESPN’s Serbia World Cup Mural Poster Called a Disgrace, Humiliation

JOCKpost and World Cup Buzz, have been getting absolutely blown up by angry commenters that are upset over the World Cup poster made by ESPN for Serbia.

It turns out the controversial Serbian poster has offended quite a few people.

If you look at the mural, you will see a few things that have grabbed their attention.

1.) The outlines of the country’s border. The Kosovo region is still officially in dispute as to whether Kosovo is an independent country or part of Serbia. This dispute continues to this day. It is very curious that ESPN decided to take a political stand via a soccer poster.

2.) The birds shown look like sea gulls. The Serbian national bird is the eagle.

3.) The colors are in the order of the Yugoslavian flag. This is offending many people.

It is very uncommon for ESPN to take any sort of political stand at all.  Of course, this was an outsourced job.  Trendhunter.com reports that NY Ad Agency, Wieden + Kennedy, created the posters.

Serbian website Pitanja.info calls the mural a ‘Humiliation.‘

Below I have picked out some of the better comments made over on World Cup Buzz.  Looks like ESPN has lost themselves a few fans.

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Good murals but I have a complaint. The Serbian mural has 2 clear mistakes. Why are the background colors blue, white and red, instead of red, blue and white? This isn’t Yugoslavia. Also Kosovo is not apart of Serbia for some unapparent reason in the mural.

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The Serbia poster is DISGRACEFUL for playing up on sensitive political issues (the incorrect flag colours and the inappropriate border outline used) I AM A SERBIA FAN BUT WOULD NOT HESITATE TO RIP IT IF I CAME ACROSS IT.

Poor form ESPN.

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The Serbia mural is nothing but a insult to all Serbs, if i had the artist or the people responsible in front of me they’d be eating that poster literally.

I fully agree with the other Serbian posters. Im not suprised tho as ESPN is American owned and not only are Americans poor in geography (map and flag colour), but clearly have their own political agendas that need to be furfilled (Pro Albanian).

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GREAT WORK ESPN!!!! THE GREEK POSTER IS ONE OF THE BEST!!!! BUT THE SERBIAN IS TOTALLY WRONG!!! SHAME!!!

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Love the fact that ESPN doesnt know s**t about geografy. Kosovo is still part of Serbia and it isnt the independent country. They dont have the chair in the UN because of that “little thing” called internationaly recognized country. People hate America because of things like this

Love the other posters

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Haha WOW! I can not believe how offended people are getting about the Serbia poster.

These are all meant to be funny and artistic ways of promoting the World Cup, primarily within the United States (ESPN is located in the USA, people)

The Serbian colors are switched so that it looks like the wings of the bird, as someone else has already pointed out.

As far as Kosovo is concerned, let’s face it, the WHOLE WORLD is split on this issue. ESPN is portraying the artwork through the USA’s stance, considering it is an AMERICAN COMPANY.

There is no offense intended, and it’s ridiculous that Serbs would be upset at Americans because of something silly like this, that is used to market the World Cup domestically. It’s not a political statement, it’s just addressing the sensitivities of the issue and going with the status-quo within the very country in which the art is produced. I’m sure if it was marketed in Serbia, ESPN would have done it differently.

American people have no problems with Serbs. Let’s at least get that straight.

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I agree, and really don’t care whether US (ESPN, to be exact) thinks Kosovo is a part of Serbia or not. But I do have a problem with the fact that, apart from posters of Honduras and Netherlands, no other country has it’s map depicted. They could put Zigic on a football field or something, rather than “standing” on a map.

I don’t think they had bad intentions… but still, it’s pretty dumb move.