Croatian FA Reacts After ESPN’s Cyrilic Poster Mistake + UPDATE

As a brief follow-up on the story that has recently occasioned quite a lot of antagonism amongst not only local soccer fans, but many Croatians who have seen ESPN’s world-cup posters…

It has come to our attention that the Croatian Football Association is in fact not to be credited for ESPN rectifying the ill-inserted Cyrillic typography in their original version of the Croatian soccer poster. In fact, it is the persistency of Mr. Branko Butkovic, a passionate activist, who has confronted the world’s leading sports media with their artistic gaffe and compelled them to adjust their artwork, which was perceived amongst Croatians as politically insensitive.

Briefly commenting on the matter, Mr. Butkovic said: “I saw the insertion of stylized Cyrillic letters in ESPN’s poster of the Croatian Football team as a negation of our right to our own culture and given the fact that it will be seen by a lot of people during the world cup, I felt it was my obligation to put it to the creator’s attention so that they rectify this unfortunate mistake.”

The ESPN poster with some Cyrilic lettering which caused a stir

ESPN corrects error

ZAGREB, 6 JUNE – The Croatian Football Federation has reacted after American media giant ESPN released a World Cup poster promoting Croatia using Cyrilic alphabet.

ESPN published posters promoting all 32 teams at this year’s World Cup in Brazil, and on Croatia’s, which featured Mario Mandžukić and Luka Modrić, they printed the team’s nickname ‘Vatreni’ using some Cyrilic letters. The Croatian FA reacted and told ESPN that the lettering on the poster was ‘unacceptable to Croatians and the Croatian FA’. ESPN corrected the error and published the correct version. (poster: ESPN)