BY TIM PARSONS
Angry Manchester United footballer ,Bastian Schweinsteiger, has launched legal action against a toymaker who have marketed a Second World War Nazi soldier doll that bears an uncanny resemblance to the footballer and is also named after him.
The range of toy soldiers depicts a figure looking exactly like the 31-year-old German midfielder and dressed as a Wehrmacht veteran with a swastika-bearing eagle on his uniform.
The Chinese company, Did Corp, in Hong kong have argued that the resemblance is purely co-incidental, and that Bastion is a common German name
A company representative told German newspaper ‘The Bild: ‘We offer no figures based on the footballer. The resemblance is purely coincidental. The figure is based on a typical German. We believe most Germans look like this”. The German newspaper had run a headline saying ”our hero is a Nazi soldier”
A Dutch firm was contracted to commence selling the figures in Europe for £65, but that process is likely to now be stalled in light of the legal suit underway by the wealthy player. Japanese businessman Takuya Umezawa is the director of the firm , also known for producing James Bond dolls, as well as First World War soldier figures.
31 year old Scweinsteger spent 31 seasons at Bayern Munich and played 500 matches, scoring 67 goals. He won 8 Bundesliga titles, 7 DFB Pokal titles, UEFA championship league titles and a FIFA world cup. He has earned over 100 caps for Germany scoring 23 goals. He was first into skiing, and was a talented youth ski player, who had to make a choice between his passion for skiing and football. He chose football and made his international debut in 2004. He is held deerly by German fans, so the news of a depiction of him, or one that looks like him, as a Nazi soldier has definitely hit a nerve.
DEFAMATION
It will be interesting to see how the whole situation plays out, because the legal suit will be based on a case of defamation of character- a legal term for when something untrue is published about someone which lowers their esteem in the eyes of those in receipt of the information. The paper could argue that nobody would look down on the player based on the toy soldier creation, but that argument will always debatable since they can’t read the mind of the public as a whole or as individuals. Their defense that the resemblance of the depiction is purely co-incidental is likely to fail because the image looks just like him and they have used his name. It will be a very interesting case.
