Ever since Mastercard has announced the campaign Food for Neymar- Messi Goals, the brand has received a lot of flak. For each goal scored by Lionel Messi and Neymar Jr, Mastercard will donate 10,000 meals to the United Nations World Food Program. The campaign is labelled as disgusting as the people are of the opinion that the starving children’s fate should not be left to the mercy of multimillionaire footballers. Even Brazilian coach Tite is not very happy with the same.

"Mastercard, I am going to tell you something," he told reporters at a news conference in Liverpool ahead of Brazil's friendly with Croatia on Sunday. "This donation to charity is very nice. It's beautiful and it's grand. Just as it would be a grand gesture you giving food if any Argentina or Brazil player was to score a goal. We work here as a team and these gestures can be a bit frustrating. Thats my suggestion,” he said.

This is how Mastercard announced their campaign on social media. Their official Twitter account read, “Goals that changes lives: for each goal scored by Messi or Neymar Jr. Mastercard will donate the equivalent of 10,000 meals to @WFP to fight childhood hunger and malnutrition in Latin America and the Caribbean #TogetherWeAre10 #StartSomethingPriceless http://mastercard.com/juntossomos10.”

The campaign made the Twitterati angry. Check out a few tweets:

“Worst PR own goal ever. If you’ve got the money.... just buy the f***ing food. How sad that the fate of a starving child rests in the foot of a multi million pound player,” said a Twitterati.

“What a load of corporate bollocks as a response @Mastercard - This is a dreadful campaign. If this happened at my agency I’d have fired the fucking lot of them,” read another tweet.

An Internet user wrote, “I hope Argentina and Brazil meet in the W/Cand both teams agree for messi and neymar to trade off goals just to fuck over this horrible idea.”

However, both Messi and Neymar are happy being associated with the campaign. “I’m proud to be a part of this campaign that will help change the lives of thousands of children in my country and other regions of the world. I hope this initiative gives as many smiles as possible to all the children.” Messi said. “I’m happy I can help make sure that children in the region can have a plate of food and more hope. Latin Americans know we can do great things when we come together, and this is an example of that. Together we can fight hunger,” Neymar Jr. said.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 03, 2018 11:22 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).