Olympic brand war

Credit card shoppers must use Visa in Olympic shops

In a massive clamp-down on "non-official" products, brand names like Pepsi have been banned from the Sydney Olympics.

As well as checking for knives and explosives, security guards are asking visitors to give up any cans and bottles of Pepsi they are carrying, and those who refuse can be barred entry.

Official shops will not accept non-Visa credit cards and officials have been checking that only the logos of official sponsors are visible in and around the Olympic village.

It is part of an attempt by organisers to keep happy the official sponsors, among them Coca-Cola, and Kodak, who between them have paid £300m to be part of the games.

Brand names at this Olympics are being protected like never before. A café inside the Olympic village even had to stop selling its popular bacon and egg roll because of its similarity to the Egg McMuffin, sold by McDonald's, another official sponsor.

Legal battles

At the last games, in Atlanta in 1996, the International Olympic Committee was criticised by sponsor companies when non-sponsors bought up bill-boards around the city and used Olympic imagery.

This time, special laws have been introduced in Sydney to prevent non-sponsor companies buying up advertising outside the games' venues. Companies who use the words "Sydney 2000" or the Olympic rings without permission face legal action.

There have already been a number of legal rows in Australia over who is allowed to advertise and how. Carlton & United, the official beer supplier is to sue rival Lion Nathan over claims it is unofficially using Olympic imagery in its adverts.

And in a dispute that was settled out of court, New Zealand airline Ansett, who had paid to become the official airline, accused Qantas of using the Olympics in its advertising.

At the opening of the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, the then IOC President Avery Brundage, said: "No-one makes money from the Olympic Games, no-one can buy an Olympic medal. On the sports field everyone stands and falls on his own merit."

For critics of today's Olympics, that vision is a dated one.