2006 FIFA World Cup Official Song

Federation Internationale de Football Assn. (FIFA), world soccer's governing body. "Bamboo" has been selected as the official melody for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the biggest soccer festival on Earth, which will kick off June 9 in Germany.

The melody will be sold as a ringtone, used in special FIFA-targeted remixes of hit songs and will feature prominently in advertising from such sponsors as Adidas, Budweiser, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Phillips.

The sheer universality of soccer -- "football" to fans of the sport everywhere outside the United States -- has given it an unrivaled advantage over other spectator sports in luring the global music business to its commercial possibilities. Three million spectators are expected to attend games during the monthlong tournament. FIFA reckons a TV audience of 1 billion will watch the July 9 final in Berlin and expects some 30 billion views of the tournament in total, up from the 28.8 billion from the 2002 event.

The simple chant of the word, composed by the relatively unknown Nadir Khayat and Bilal Hajji, will almost certainly be heard by an accumulated audience of as many as 30 billion TV viewers in the space of about a month. Source