Brazil asks Adidas to stop selling 'sexualised' World Cup T-shirts

World Cup sponsor and official ball provider Adidas has agreed to stop selling two T-shirts after complaints from Brazil's tourism board about their sexual innuendos.

According to Reuters, the country's tourism board objected to the shirts because "they encourage sexual tourism" — a problem Brazil fears will worsen exponentially with hundreds of thousands of visitors in the country during the World Cup this summer.

One shirt shows a bikini-clad woman with open arms on a sunny Rio de Janeiro beach under the words "Looking to Score". The other has an "I love Brazil" heart resembling the upside-down buttocks of a woman wearing a thong. The designs touched a nerve in Brazil, where people often complain about foreign stereotypes of Brazilian sensuality. The government is campaigning aggressively to shed the country's reputation as a destination for sex tourism.

Dilma Rousseff – Brazil's first female president – said her government would crack down on sex tourism and the exploitation of children during the ccompetition, which is expected to draw 600,000 foreign fans. "Brazil is happy to receive tourists for the World Cup, but it is also ready to combat sex tourism," she said in a burst of Twitter messages that included a hotline number to report cases of sexual exploitation.m" of sexual predators.