Zakumi Zakumi Zakumi the Leopard was the Official Mascot for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. He is a cheerful, sporty anthropomorphized leopard with green hair, presented on 22 September 2008. His name comes from "ZA", the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code for South Africa, and "kumi", a word that means "ten" in several African languages, referencing the year 2010. Za is a code for South Africa and kumi means ten in many African languages so it signifies South Africa 2010. Zakumi the leopard's birth date coincides with a day known and celebrated as Youth Day in South Africa. The group A match
Zakumi the last years, he has travelled the whole of Africa where the leopard habitat is good (pretty much everywhere from open savannahs, forests, jungles to mountainous areas, even deserts). He has therefore learned to adapt to new environments; enjoying the diversity in nature and people across the African continent. A contract for the manufacture of Zakumi figurines was awarded to a company owned by Dr. Shiaan-Bin Huang, who is an ANC representative member in the South African parliament. The manufacture of the figurines was outsourced to Shanghai Fashion Plastic Products in China. The value of the contract was in excess