LE SCAN SPORT – Sentenced for infringement by a Brazilian court, Fifa will compensate the two designers who had filed a complaint in 2017.
Argentinian Pablo Silva and Brazilian Haine Germany are rich men. Very rich, even, since their bank accounts are expected to swell to a total of $ 120 million very soon. These two inventors, to whom we owe the spray called “9.15” used by the referees to draw white lines used to place the players at a good distance from the ball, have just won their lawsuit against Fifa in 2017.
The duo had filed a complaint in a Brazilian court because they believed that the International Football Federation had used their invention without their consent, entrusting its production to another company by infringing the patent. The complainants had yet reached an agreement with Fifa then led by Sepp Blatter but this had not been honored since the suspension of the Swiss in 2015 following Fifagate and the arrival of his successor Gianni Infantino.
A court of appeal in Rio has just ruled in favor of the two men, ordering Fifa to pay damages (including $ 15,000 per match played with spray) for infringement. Pablo Silva and Haine Germany, who had signed a deal with the former leaders to the tune of 40 million dollars should therefore receive about three times as much soon.
An amateur player behind the invention of the spray
An amateur player annoyed by the failure to respect the opponents’ distance of 9 meters 15 on free kicks, Pablo Silva had taken it into his head to find a process to put an end to this very frequent violation of the rule. He approached biochemists and in particular Heine Germany to design this white spray which has the advantage of disappearing from the lawn after a few tens of seconds. His aerosol can was used for the first time in 2008 in the Argentinian championship, then during international competitions in 2011 before making a very remarkable entrance on the lawns at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
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