Pele sues Samsung for using lookalike in ad

Pele

Electronics giant, Samsung, is being sued for $30m (£21m) by Pele, the world’s most famous footballer, over the former’s use of a lookalike in an ad for high-definition TVs.

The Brazilian football icon has filed a legal challenge at the US District Court in Chicago, claiming that the ads, which appeared in the New York Times improperly used an image that resembled him.

The ad does not name Pele but includes the face of a man who “very closely resembles him”, while a smaller image of a widescreen Samsung television shows a (white) man performing a scissor-kick, a move made famous by Pele.

Pele make much of his income through product endorsements and the complaint states that Samsung’s ad will damage the value of his endorsement rights and imply to consumers that he is a Samsung endorsee.