Panda cubs at an enclosure in China have been forbidden from predicting scores at the World Cup.

The pandas had been primed to predict winners by choosing their food from baskets emblazoned with the teams' national flags, but the Chengdu research base pulled out of the stunt.

Officials banned the cubs from participating in the stunt, saying that too much contact with humans would be harmful to the pandas, according to BBC News.

The idea of animals predicting football scores has become a standard publicity stunt for zoos and other organisations, with the most famous example from the last tournament being Paul the octopus.