Wuppies, little tufts of synthetic orange fur with eyes, are becoming a national craze with Dutch backing for their World Cup team reaching fever pitch.

Dutch soccer fans dance around a fountain in the centre of Frankfurt, June 21, 2006. The Netherlands will play Argentina in their World Cup 2006 first round group stage in Frankfurt today. [Reuters]

The supermarket chain Albert Heijn launched a campaign two weeks ago to support the country's soccer heroes and said they had run out of 16 million wuppies in two weeks after giving them to customers who spent more than 15 euros (US$18.94) on groceries.

An element of the campaign included changing the name of the traditional song chanted by Dutch soccer fans from 'Hup Holland Hup' (go Holland go) into 'Wup Holland Wup'.

"Part of the success is the parents of today were the kids who bought the wuppies 25 years ago," said a spokeswoman for the supermarket chain.

A larger version of the wuppie, the 'mega wuppie', has also been snapped up.

The chain quickly ran out of mega wuppies, which are now being traded on eBay for as much as 28 euros, about four times their original price.

A woman was fined 130 euros this week for having four on her car dashboard. Police said the wuppies were a hazard because they blocked her view, Dutch NOS news reported.