He's been blamed for failing to lead England's most gifted generation of footballers to the European Championships - and now Steve McClaren is having to carry the can for costing Canon millions of pounds in digital camera sales.

The company, which is one of the sponsors of Euro 2008, has based huge swathes of its forthcoming marketing campaign around the football tournament, but Canon now fears that it may have scored an own goal with its £4.5m marketing campaign, reports Computer Shopper.

"[England's failure to qualify for Euro 2008] is quite painful from a business as well as a personal perspective," says Guido Jacobs, marketing director for Canon UK.

And to emphasise the company's antipathy towards the former England boss, Canon's head of European marketing (himself an Italian), even showed a picture of McClaren cowering under his infamous umbrella on a slide that highlighted the downturn in consumer spending.