Phones horn in on vuvuzela craze

THEY may be under threat of being banned from World Cup football stadiums but the vuvuzela is here to stay as mobile phone users can keep the sound in their pockets.

A range of phone applications, most of them free, are being snapped up by users of Apple iPhones and other smartphones to mimic the sound of the horns that are making as much news as the action at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Despite the efforts of global TV bosses to have the noisy instruments banned because of complaints from soccer fans having difficulty hearing commentaries, FIFA decided this week not to ban fans from bringing them into the stadia where the top teams are vying for glory.

But the developers of mobile phone software have been quick off the mark to take advantage of the world craze surrounding the vuvuzelas. Now, three of the 15 best-selling free applications for iPhone offer owners the chance to make their own noise without having to visit Africa.

The biggest-selling app is Vuvuzela 2010, whose developers claim to have had more than a million people download it to their phones.

It even comes with the warning: “Using the vuvuzela can be regarded as highly addictive.”

But despite big sales of the real thing here, GAA fans should not expect to be blaring the horns from Hill 16 or high in the Cusack Stand over the summer.

Croke Park stadium director Peter McKenna said the vuvuzela falls foul of the same regulations that already mean air-horns and bugles are banned.

“There’s no doubt the vuvuzelas have destroyed the World Cup, making it very difficult to watch the games on TV. I’d be implacably opposed to them, as players can’t talk to each other over the noise and they’d be very disruptive to local residents,” he said.

The Jabula shops selling all things South African in Cork and Dublin have, nevertheless, sold hundreds of vuvuzelas in little over a week and can’t get their next order in quick enough.

“It’s mostly South Africans buying them but there have been some locals as well,” said Samantha Rorich, who works in the Cork store on Marlboro Street.

“They are immensely loud alright, we’ve had a few people who just walked out of the shop again after giving it just one toot,” she said.

Meanwhile, the English Premier League has been reported as seeing no reason why the vuvuzela could not become part and parcel of the game across the water.

The South African organisers of the World Cup are encouraging visiting fans to bring home the plastic horns and introduce them to their own sporting culture. For those who are already sick to near-deafness by them, there could be some small solace in not having an army of Irish supporters backing the Boys in Green at this particular tournament.