20 May 2010

International magazine makes fun of All Whites

3:44 pm on 20 May 2010

The All Whites have been mocked by the international magazine Vanity Fair in the lead-up to their first Football World Cup appearance in 28 years.

The magazine refers to itself as a cultural catalyst driving popular dialogue but one of the gags on its website has fallen flat because of an inaccuracy.

The posting is one of a series profiling the World Cup participants on a Vanity Fair blog, called Fair Play.

The article begins by criticising the team name as a poor spin-off of the All Blacks.

It says the team's competitors Italy, Paraguay and Slovakia, will not be pushed over by pre-game intimidation tactics like "the haka dance of the Maori people".

New Zealand Football chairman Frank van Hattum had not heard of Vanity Fair until he was contacted by Radio New Zealand this morning.

He says the criticism of the haka is a bit of a nonsense as football's governing body, FIFA, does not allow any international team to make pre-match presentations.

The All Whites play their opening game against Slovakia on 15 June in Rustenburg.