FIFA has warned Pepsi Company not to continue infringeing the commercial rights of lawful sponsors by using misleading advertisement before the 2010 World Cup.

Pepsi set a question "How many international football players are signed up by Pepsi to sponsor World Cup" on a Chinese website in April, which is considered as a "misleading reference" by FIFA.

In a lawyer's letter to Pepsi, FIFA reminded Pepsi that it is not a sponsor of the World Cup and therefore the reference to the sponsorship to the event is inappropriate and misleading, and the continuous use of such misleading reference could seriously infringe lawful rights and interests of FIFA's sponsors.

FIFA requests Pepsi to remove the midleading reference immediately and issue a letter to apologize for that.

Oliver Takahashi, head of FIFA Marketing Department told Xinhua that the Rights Protection Team has handled more than 3000 cases worldwide for the 2010 World Cup cycle, between counterfeit seizures, IPR infringements and ambush marketing campaigns.

"Typcially, we have been quite successful in solving detected cases without the need to take court action," said Takahashi," When we find an infringement to FIFA rights, we engage the infinging company and make sure they change the campaigns and/or materials in order to remove the infringement."