The curious case of vanishing spray used in Football matches

Since the first use of vanishing spray in a Fifa World Cup match, the beautifully simplistic, potentially universal addition to the game has continued to feed into evermore leagues around the world. Pablo Silva, an Argentine entrepreneur and journalist patented it -US20120148741A1/. Allemagne was the first to start working on the problem in 2000. Both became partners in 9:15 Fair Play.  It took six years of lobbying by Allemagne and Silva, eventually resulting in the International Football Association Board, who oversee the game’s rules, approving the spray for widespread use, in March 2012. In 2013, the Club World Cup in Morocco would be the final testing ground for Fifa to grant the spray approval for the 2014 World Cup. 

As per reports financial rewards were nonexistent: “The sprays for the World Cup were given for free. Fifa only gave me two tickets for the final of the World Cup for retribution ... The inventors also charged FIFA with stealing their idea, not paying them but licensing imitations from several parts of the world...

Quoting from daily mail...Five months before the World Cup, Mr Allemagne and his Argentinian business partner Pablo Silva received a written proposal from Thierry Weil, FIFA's marketing director, offering to buy his invention for £380,000.

Mr Allemagne said: 'We didn't respond. The figure was far too low. Grandona, FIFA's finance chief, later had a conversation with Pablo in which he told him not to worry, that after the World Cup the spray would be much more, at least £30million.'...