Look who's playing centre-Barack for England! World Cup mug manufacturer mistakes defender Chris Smalling for President Obama

Souvenir stuff-up with photo of Obama captioned as defender Chris Smalling

Shows Obama wearing the England footy top in head and shoulders photo

Company junior employee now facing demotion after costly blunder



A hilarious blunder at a company producing World Cup merchandise has seen Barack Obama mistaken for defender Chris Smalling on a set of mugs.



The U.S. President is pictured wearing the England football top after a junior member of staff was tasked with finding royalty free images of the squad.



The head and shoulders photo printed on the mugs show Obama wearing the kit, with the caption 'Chris Smalling World Cup squad Brazil 2014' beneath it.



Can the real Chris Smalling please stand up?: U.S. President Barack Obama cuts a striking figure in his England top, left, but poses little actual similarity to England and Manchester United defender Chris Smalling, right



Barack Obama, pictured bottom left, features as an England left-back according to the set of coffee mugs

The merchandise company which made the error has now hastily turned to Dorset-based expert clearance resellers Wholesale Clearance UK to try and shift the stock that could have easily appeared in an Only Fools and Horses episode.

Wholesale Clearance managing director Karl Baxter said the company contacted him with the hope of off-loading the stock.

However, the quality of their picture research was about as successful as that of England's 2014 Football World Cup campaign.

Mr Baxter said he believed a junior member of staff at the Dorset company responsible could be facing demotion after being trusted with the task of sourcing royalty free pictures of each England player to use on the mugs.



'They passed this onto to their young, bright eyed and bushy tailed new apprentice. The designs were proofed and signed off by their boss, who had clearly had a heavy night with the lads playing poker and before he'd had his first vat of coffee the following morning.

'They immediately contacted us and 2,000 of the England items were dispatched to our warehouse. We eagerly unpacked them and, indeed it turned out that the Chris Smalling cup had Barack Obama's head on instead of Chris's.'