It seems that an American business has been awarded the multi-million-dollar contract to print the tickets for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, and the Brits are not too pleased about it. Arkansas firm Weldon, Williams & Lick got the job to print up to 11 million tickets -- a move that UK businesses are heavily criticizing.

According to BBC News, the tickets for the Olympic and Paralympic games will be shipped 7,300km from Fort Smith, Arkansas and posted to UK addresses at a cost of £6 per order.

Matthew Jaffa, spokesperson for the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said: "We are concerned many local businesses are being left out of the loop. A significant amount of small businesses were in a position to win the bid but the complexity of the bid process makes it onerous for them to compete."

However, a spokesperson for the London 2012 Olympics had this to say: "The contract to print and fulfil the bulk of tickets for London 2012 was awarded following a thorough, competitive and open procurement process. The company which won the bid has worked on several previous Games, met all of our criteria around security, budget and scale and has specialist systems in place to personalize, print and package tickets on the scale we require."