Zakumi

Zakumi the Leopard was the Official Mascot for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. He is a cheerful, sporty anthropomorphized leopard with green hair, presented on 22 September 2008. His name comes from "ZA", the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code for South Africa, and kumi, a word that means "ten" in several African languages, referencing the year 2010.

Za is a code for South Africa and kumi means ten in many African languages so it signifies South Africa 2010. Zakumi the leopard's birth date coincides with a day known and celebrated as Youth Day in South Africa. The group A match played between South Africa and Uruguay (Match 17) also coincides with Zakumi's birthday. He turned sixteen on 16 June 2010.

The green and yellow (gold) colours of the character match the colours used in South African sport uniforms and can also be seen in the South Africa national football team's kit.

Andries Odendaal, from Cape Town, created the original character design. The official motto of Zakumi is "Zakumi's game is Fair Play." The motto was seen in the digital advertisement boards during the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup, and has also appeared in the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Zakumi was intended to depict a jolly, self-confident, adventurous, spontaneous, and, contrariwise, quite a shrewd little fellow. He was shown as loving to perform and always follow his instincts and intuition. He was also shown as sometimes having the tendency to exaggerate somewhat.

He is often found fooling about and teasing people but not in a mean way. He is warm hearted and caring, and wanted to make as many friends as possible. He loves to play football as it is a great way to connect with others and break down language barriers.

He always carries his football around which he will use to invite people to play with him. Zakumi loves football. At one time he decided to dye his hair green as he felt it would be the perfect camouflage against the green of the football pitch; a bit like his rosette spots are when hunting in the wilderness!

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Wikipedia