Global burger brand Shake Shack is facing backlash after it gave customers at a store in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), a World Cup souvenir that depicted the Taegeukgi incorrectly.
Seo Kyung-duk, a Sungshin Women's University professor, said on the 14th on social media (SNS) that "I received a tip from a Korean resident in Abu Dhabi," and noted, "They bought a World Cup set menu, and the merch provided with it had the Taegeukgi drawn incorrectly."
The disputed merch featured the flags of 48 countries that qualified for the North and Central America World Cup. In the photo Seo released, the taegeuk emblem was depicted differently from the actual Taegeukgi, and the geon-gon-gam-ri trigrams that should appear in the four corners were also missing.
Seo said a global franchise producing an inaccurate version of a national flag is not a matter that can be brushed off as a simple mistake.
Seo said, "It is unacceptable for a world-famous hamburger chain to make this kind of mistake with a national symbol," adding, "I will soon send a protest email to the headquarters and demand they immediately stop distributing the merch."
He added, "Making and handing out this kind of merch to consumers undermines the meaning of the World Cup," and emphasized, "If they are global corporations, they must first have the attitude to accurately grasp basic information about the countries where they do business."