South Africa's Nazareth Baptist Church is threatening legal action over the vuvuzela - the noisy plastic trumpet used by South African football fans that has caused controversy ahead of this year's FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

The church on Tuesday claimed it was the inventor of the vuvuzela and it will take legal action against companies claiming to have trademark rights to the instrument.

According to the Nazareth Baptist church, also known as the Shembe church, they have been using the vuvuzela since the church was founded by Prophet Isaiah Shembe in 1910. The instrument was used for praise and worship.

The Cape Time newspaper in South Africa on Tuesday reported church spokesman Edward Ximba as saying the church's legal team had been instructed to look at the origins of the vuvuzela and advise them on their rights.

"The Shembe church has been exploited for years by people who think they know better. This is particularly because they think we are uneducated."

Ximba said the church wanted compensation from the company claiming rights to the vuvuzela.

Neil van Schalkwyk, spokesman for Masincedane Sports, holders of the trademark for the vuvuzela, said the Shembe church had approached the company six years ago about who had come up with the concept for the instrument.

"We started manufacturing vuvuzelas in 2001, and at that time we were not even aware of the Shembe church," he said.

The company had been contacted by the Shembe church in 2004, the year the company applied for a trademark for the vuvuzela.

"We met with the Shembe representatives in 2004, who said they wanted compensation, and forwarded them a proposal that we would sell the vuvuzelas to them at wholesale price. They could then sell them to their members and make a good profit, as they claimed to have about four million members."

Another company manufacturing vuvuzelas, whose representative asked not to be named, said the instrument belonged to soccer supporters and no one could claim rights to it, including the Shembe church.

Rich Mkhondo, spokesman for South Africa's 2010 FIFA local organizing committee, said the committee had not made or distributed vuvuzelas.

"We also have no control or influence over what spectators can bring to the soccer venues or what they can use as a celebratory instrument," he said.

"The church must consult the suppliers of vuvuzelas, not us."

During the FIFA Confedratisn Cup in South Africa last year there were man objections from players and spectators about the noise made by vuvuzelas.