Zakumi (born 16 June 1994 (age 16)) is the Official Mascot for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. He is a cheerful and sporty 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.
Facts
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 16 on June 16 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 he will also appear in the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Personality
Zakumi is a jolly, self-confident, adventurous, spontaneous, and actually quite shrewd little fellow. He loves to perform and always follows his instinct and intuition, yet sometimes has the tendency to exaggerate a bit. He is often found fooling about and teasing people but not in a mean way. He is warm-hearted and caring, and wants 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!
He does have one striking weakness. With all his energy, he needs frequent rests. Occasionally, in-between performances on stage, he may suddenly fall asleep on the spot at the most random times! But rest assured, these are only short breaks that a leopard of his calibre needs to recharge his batteries.
