Willie Mason, Australia's most famous rugby (league) player is currently the face of Champion Sportswear hoodies.
Note to UK based readers. Hoodies in Australia do not have the same association with gangs and crime that they do in the UK. Although this may be changing.
Our Willie is prone to misbehaving. Nothing major, but the image of a thug is carefully cultivated. Champion thought him the perfect person to market their hoodies. They were right as Managing Director, Vaughn Richards recently confirmed,
"Our sales with Willie have been phenomenal since he started as Champion ambassador. We are very excited to have him on board and he will continue in his relationship with us."
However, Willie's behaviour continues to offend (though certainly not its target audience). In order to pretend that they care about his incidents involving harrassing female reporters, violence, pretending to urinate on opposition supporters, testing positive to drugs, and other general misdemeanours, Champion are very publically pretending to give a shit, claiming almost incredulously that the Board of Directors wanted Mason axed from his $100,000 a year deal as company ambassador.
"I have spoken at great lengths with his manager regarding the situation and have made it very clear that his image and character would have to be impeccable as our ambassador."
Richards claims to have said to him. What he really said to him was this,
"Fucking top job Willie. Your consistent thuggish behaviour is causing our hoodies to fly out of the shops. Nice work, fella. Keep it up."
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