Philadelphia-Area Soccer Fans Displeased With New Team Jerseys

Their new jerseys advertise the fact that Philadelphia’s Major League Soccer team is now sponsored by Mexican baking giant Bimbo. I predict that Philadelphia Union jerseys will be popular hategifts this Valentine’s Day. Send it to someone dumb!

The Philadelphia Union are the fifth team to be sponsored by the company, and Bimbo is a popular brand in Mexico and isn’t problematic in Spanish, but in English it’s a misogynistic insult meant to diminish the intelligence of a woman, and in German, it’s a derogatory slang word for someone of African descent. In a press conference filled with palpable discomfort and rationalization you could cut with a butter knife, team owners unveiled the new jerseys thus-

While this isn’t the first time that a company’s name didn’t quite translate into a new market, the company should probably have covered its linguistic bases before slapping an insulting word on the front of jerseys of an American soccer team that derives revenue from jersey sales. It could be worse, although on a scale of one to “Coca Cola translates into something kind of like ‘bite the wax tadpole’ in Chinese putting a big “BIMBO” logo on the front of Philadelphia soccer jerseys is pretty high up there. Almost like naming your kid “Malackas” and then sending him to study abroad in Greece, where “malakas” means “masturbater.”

It’s possible, though, that Philadelphia’s team is steps ahead of the game and has added “BIMBO” to the front of their jerseys in an attempt to court Cristiano Ronaldo.

Philadelpha Union To Sport Bimbo Logo [Business Journal]