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Danish firms to remove logos ahead of football match

Updated: 24/Feb/2006 16:14

Niclas Jensen, Danemark's national team football player

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The main sponsor’s of the Danish football team, Arla Foods and the DONG energy company are to remove their logos from the national team shirts for their game against Israel on 1 March.

A spokesman for Arla Foods, which is bearing the brunt of the Arab world’s boycott of Danish products, said it does not want any extra controversy.

"We would like to maintain the focus on football, so we will hold off with putting the Arla logo on until the next match," Arla spokesperson Astrid Gade-Nielsen told the Danish news agency Ritzau.

The match between has already been frought with controversy. At one point several first-team players said that they would rather not travel to Israel to play this game.

However, after allaying security fears Danish head coach, Morten Olsen said that his players would turn up and be ready to play the friendly game at Israel’s Ramat Gan stadium on March 1st.

Lost revenue

Arla, Europe’s second largest dairy firm, said sales in the Middle East had ground to a halt, causing a loss of about 17 million Euros since the row over cartoons depicting Muslim prophet Mohammad erupted.

The firm’s media relations manager said the Middle East accounted for about 6% of the company’s total turnover of 6.7 billion Euros.

Ironically many media sources have reported that the company has a boycott of Israel as part of a policy to maintain trade with Arab countries. An article in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten recently suggested that Arla itself has for many years been boycotting Israel.

Israel boycott?

In reaction to these claims, Arla released a statement denying that they have ever boycotted Israel.

“We have never boycotted Israel, and we have never agreed to do so,” says Deputy Managing Director Andreas Lundby said. “On the contrary, our trade with Israel is growing.”

The statement added: "With regard to exports to Saudi Arabia, Arla declares that its products are Danish and not produced in Israel or contain ingredients from Israel in a so-called certificate of origin."