Burger King Reconsiders Plan To Tell Russian Ladies To Get Knocked Up By Soccer Players

Well, that's one way to sell a Whopper.

What would you do for three million rubles and a lifetime supply of Burger King Whoppers? If the answer is "Have the baby of a random professional soccer player I met during the World Cup," you just missed out on the chance of a lifetime. Because Burger King Russia was just offering such a promotion, and has had to cancel it, because for some reason, people thought a "burgers for broodmares" promotion was a tad sexist.

The company -- which we must imagine does not employ many women in their PR department -- posted the promotion this week on VK, the Russian version of Facebook.

Via CBS :

"As part of its social responsibility (campaign), Burger King is offering a reward to women who get impregnated by football stars," said Burger King.

"Every woman will get three million rubles (around $45,000) and a lifetime's supply of Whopper burgers. Women who manage to get the best football genes will ensure Russia's success in future generations."

The post ended with a call: "Go ahead! We believe in you!"

I don't know what their word for "impregnated" is, but I can't imagine this sounds any better in the original Russian. There probably is not a language in which a fast food chain can offer you hamburgers for getting pregnant and have that not sound weird.

As it turned out, Russian women did not want to have soccer babies for burgers, and a social media firestorm erupted, causing Burger King (Burger Tsar?) to cancel the promotion. So now if you have some rando's soccer lovechild, you get NOTHING.

 Giphy 

As disturbing as all of that sounds, this campaign was actually supposed to be a response to some incredibly messed up statements from Communist Party Parliamentarian Tamara Pletneva, who was going around telling women to make sure they didn't bang any of them dang foreigners at the World Cup, lest they end up raising children of a different race. Bringing up the fact that the 1980 Moscow Olympics led to some Russian women getting knocked up by foreigners, Pletneva said:

"It's the children who suffer... and have suffered since the Soviet era. It's lucky if they're the same race (as the mother) but if they're of another race, it's worse."

Yes, she actually said that. On a radio show.

So, the Burger King thing was meant to be more of a "Nevermind that weird Pletneva lady's nonsense! We're not racist! Go have some World Cup babies! We bet those babies will be AWESOME!" kind of thing, but definitely failed in that regard. Because no matter which way you go with it, there is never a good way to tell a woman what to do with her vagina. Telling women not to fuck soccer players because they might have babies of a different race is creepy, but so is "go bang some soccer players and if you get knocked up, we will give you all the hamburgers!"

Also, how would they have confirmed the soccer sperms?

Whether you are a government official or a fast food chain, it's best to stay out of it.

[ CBS ]