Fakers back Spain

If China's booming market for fake goods is any guide, Spain are on course to end their long World Cup drought next month.
Counterfeit versions of the Spanish jersey -- whose vibrant colours evoke the red and yellow of the Chinese communist flag -- are the top-selling World Cup merchandise on auction sites such as Taobao.com.
More than 100,000 jerseys of World Cup teams have been sold online, most of them fakes costing around 50 yuan (7.30 dollars) each, the China Daily said Tuesday, citing online sales data.
Pirated Spain kits lead the way with 17,430 sold, followed by the shirts of Germany, England, France, Argentina, Italy, Brazil, Portugal, the Netherlands and Japan, it said.
An authentic Spain shirt from Adidas sporting a player's name costs as much as 1,499 yuan -- more than most Chinese earn in a month.
"For those who would like to wear the shirts when playing soccer themselves, the pirated ones are obviously the better choice," Cai Haibing, an online vendor from the southern city of Guangzhou, told the paper.
"After all, who is willing to have their expensive copyright shirts dragged or scraped on the green field?" said Cai, who sold 590 fake Argentina jerseys last month alone on Taobao.com.
China's counterfeit and piracy market is the biggest in the world, with fake products such as clothes, electronic gadgets and software readily available in stores and on the Internet, at a small fraction of the cost of the real thing.
The World Cup opens on Friday in South Africa and climaxes on July 11. Spain have never won the tournament but are the bookmakers' favourites, ahead of Brazil. China failed to qualify.