Super Bowl Drama: This Year's 5 Biggest Controversies

We tackle the hot-button issues surrounding the championship game days

The Super Bowl isn't until Sunday, but it's already faced some unexpected fumbles.

Here, we take a look at the top five controversies surrounding this year's championship showdown between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers.

1. Car Trouble: Critics charged the Volkswagen's new Super Bowl spot as racist because it features a white man speaking with a Jamaican accent as he tries to cheer up his coworkers. "C'mon, Get Happy" plays in the background.

However, Jamaica's Minister of Tourism and Entertainment, Wykeham McNeill, approved of the ad because it taps into his country's "mass appeal...and its hospitable people."

A Volkswagen rep said the accents help bring "an optimistic, bright spirit" into having to go to work on Monday.

2. Drinking Problem: Coca-Cola's TV spot features an Arab on a camel, a few cowboys, a biker gang and some showgirls racing through a hot and arid desert to win a cold Coke. Viewers are invited to vote on who should win on the beverage giant's website.

Not only is the Arab excluded from the ballot, but some Arab-Americans have also slammed his stereotypical portrayal as racist.

3. Oh, Daddy: CBS didn't want another wardrobe malfunction-like crisis on its hands, so they rejected a GoDaddy.com commercial that features supermodel Bar Refaeli making out with a bespectacled frizzy-haired nerd because it shows way too much tongue. Instead, a tamer version will air during the game with the steamier version posted online.

In other daddy news, the New York Post broke the news earlier this week that one of CBS' pregame commentators, NFL Hall of Famer Dan Marino, fathered a love child about seven years ago with a production assistant at the network.

"This is a personal and private matter. I take full responsibility both personally and financially for my actions now as I did then," Marino, who is still married to his wife of 28 years, Claire, told the newspaper in a written statement. "We mutually agreed to keep our arrangement private to protect all parties involved."

4. Gridiron Gay: During a radio interview on Media Day on Tuesday, 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver spewed that gay people weren't welcome on his team. The team's management quickly released a statement saying they "reject" Culliver's views. "There is no place for discrimination within our organization at any level," the statement read. "We have and always will proudly support the LGBT community."

Culliver also apologized, insisting that his verbal hate isn't how he "truly" feels. "I apologize to those who I have hurt and offended, and I pledge to learn and grow from this experience," he said in a statement.

5. Lip Service: Beyoncé possibly lip-syncing could have been the biggest controversy of all, but the music superstar shut her haters down and proved that she can—and will—perform live on Sunday when she opened her Super Bowl press conference yesterday by belting out the National Anthem. Nice play, B!