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TOP FOOTBALL SPONSORS Coca-Cola, Adidas, McDonald’s and Visa have pressed Fifa to clean itself up as the newest corruption scandal threatens efforts to market their products through the world’s most popular sport.
The companies that pay hundreds of millions of dollars to place their ads around World Cup and other global football venues said Fifa needed stronger ethical standards, after seven of its officials were arrested in Switzerland for bribery.
The arrests came as part of a US Justice Department case that named nine officials of football’s governing body, and five sports marketing officials, in a number of instances of bribes and kickbacks involving sponsorships over the past two decades.
Visa said that if Fifa’s ethical problems aren’t addressed it may pull its sponsorship.
Associated Press
Associated Press
“Our disappointment and concern with FIFA in light of today’s developments is profound,” the company said in a strongly-worded statement, adding that it expects the football organisation to rebuild with “strong ethical practices”:
Should FIFA fail to do so, we have informed them that we will reassess our sponsorship.
Coca-Cola, which pays an estimated $30 million (€27 million) a year to be one of five official Fifa partners, issued a stern rebuke to the organisation.
Ahn Young-joon / AP
Ahn Young-joon / AP / AP
“This lengthy controversy has tarnished the mission and ideals of the FIFA World Cup and we have repeatedly expressed our concerns about these serious allegations. We expect FIFA to continue to address these issues thoroughly,” the company said.
“McDonald’s takes matters of ethics and corruption very seriously,” the US fast-food company, an official sponsor of the 2018 World Cup in Russia, said.
We are in contact with FIFA on this matter. We will continue to monitor the situation very closely.
Also speaking out were Adidas and Budweiser.
The German sportswear group said it would encourage football’s global governing body “to establish and follow transparent compliance standards in everything they do.”
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And Budweiser, the US beer unit of Belgian brewing giant AB InBev, said:
We expect all of our partners to maintain strong ethical standards and operate with transparency.
Money pressure
Complaints against Fifa from global consumer-goods giants that pump hundreds of millions of dollars annually into the world’s leading sport have mounted over the past two years.
None of the official sponsors has been implicated in the scandals. But all clearly worry that the cloud over the organisation could stain their own reputations and hurt sales.
They have been especially worried over corruption allegations behind Fifa’s award of the World Cup to Qatar in 2022.
Two Nepalese men working on stadiums in Qatar Associated Press
Associated Press
Last year five top sponsors — Coca-Cola, Hyundai, Adidas, Sony and Visa — called for a proper investigation of the 2022 bid process.
And last week Coke and Visa expressed worries over the treatment of hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers in Qatar who are building the facilities for the tournament, after human rights groups and journalists exposed dire work conditions.
None of the sponsors, whose funding is essential to Fifa, has gone so far as to withdraw its sponsorship of the sport.
A worker at the Al-Wakra stadium in Qatar. Associated Press
Associated Press
But amid likely pressure from the public and shareholders to avoid being tainted by the Fifa investigation, sports marketing expert David Carter of the Sports Business Group said they “have to look as though they are part of the solution.”
The scandal is a risk for their brands, he said, and that could lead to pressure “to reallocate their dollars” for advertising.
“They need to be proactive in calling for a complete cleansing or threaten, if not actually pull, their sponsorship over time,” he told AFP.
“The large majority of sponsors will hang in there,” said Andrew Zimbalist, an economist and sports business expert at Smith College.
Most sponsors who were putting money into FIFA knew about FIFA’s problems, so this was not new for them.
Before the world cup in Brazil, Fifa forced the government to change the law to allow alcohol be served in stadiums just because Budweiser were ‘official sponsors’. The reason it was banned in the first place was due to the carnage it caused with their over passionate football fans. All of these companies are as bad as each other. They act as if they’re best bud’s in their adverts but they’d stab each other in the back if there was a chance anything would negatively impact the image of their company.
When you see that $100million was spent on bribes for next year’s centennial Copa America in the USA and that 2/3s of the cost of this year’s Gold Cup in the USA was spent on bribes then the sponsors must be thinking “what the hell are we paying for?”!
It’s a sad state of affairs when the arrest of prominent FIFA officials has sponsors contemplating pulling out, but the reports of scores of Nepalese workers dying on building sites in Qatar didn’t elicit the same response.
1200 dead so far – I think. I guess the world thinks this is OK as the killings continue with not too many looking for it to stop. Btw how many died building the Olympic stadium in London – none!
I don’t see how this story proves liberals cherry pick outrage, this is a case of large multi-national corporations cherry picking outrage and companies like these tend to be much more heavily supported by conservatives than liberals.
They’ll never pull out for any reason….if Visa pull out Mastercard waiting to replace…..if McDonald’s pull out in comes BurgerKing….Coke replaced by Pepsi…..it’s like being up front at a gig, there’s no way you’re movin’ and losin’ your spot…no matter what happens. They won’t give it up that easy. It’s about the mighty dollar and as long as it’s not happening in the US they’re usually fine with it.
Now is a good time to disband the whole corrupt system. Get rid of the Qatar world cup, it is probably to late to cancel Russia, if it’s not, and anotyer country can stage it it in 2018 let that happen too. UEFA should pull out of all games and have their own competition at the same time as FIFA see what happens then the sponsorship would fall apart. Time for change from top Dow. It’s not today or yesterday we knew Seth & Co were as bent as a nine bob note.
why does everyone want the Russia one cancelled Russia is a perfect place for a world Cup they already have the stadia. bar a few upgrades they are as fit to hold a world Cup as England. they may have bribed a few people but by the look of things so has every other country that got a world Cup, it seems that’s how you get one thanks to me blatter
If you leave out the homophobic legislation, racism, fans rioting at Euro 2012, rampant corruption, state totalitarianism and domestic terrorism – Russia doesn’t sound that bad. And that’s not even getting into the fact that they bribed their way to being hosts.
Australia, England, France, Spain, Germany and Italy (among others) could all host the tournament tomorrow if necessary.
Brasil 2014 had to change their alcohol laws to allow people to drink alcohol in the football stadiums after pressure from an American sponsor, I wonder would the Arab world allow drinking of alcohol in their stadiums ? Or females in bikini tops and shorts walking around the streets. It will be interesting if it goes ahead in Qatar, especially if Israel qualify!!!!!!!
all I see is lots of free advertising for the brands, all they did was issue statements and if they did pull out Pepsi burger King and master card would just take their place. sepp blatter needs to step down or at the very least not run for a 5th term, he is clearly power hungry and I’m sure he fears prosecution that at the moment holding all the cards and as soon as he doesn’t he will be the no1 target.
If coke pulled out due to corruption, there’s no way in the world pepsi would step in – what message would that send out? Not even the dumbest PR consultant in the world would recommend that!
Yes but the demand from sponsors is because if the Global audience is a billion viewers or whatever and there are no shortage of global brands that would be interested – they don’t see it as a corrupt FIFA they see it for the global reach they can get – and if Samsung , Red Bull ,Snickers or who ever are sponsors when the games come around the public won’t be outraged at all so that’s why Coke Mc Donalds etc threaten but are reluctant to cancel those sponsorships.
Coca Cola so outraged to learn of fifa corruption that they are asking for the return of all the brown envelopes they handed over to secure major sponsor status for the last two world cups
Ah yes, these guys have just realised there is something iffy about FIFA. Now, this very minute, didn’t even have an inkling before this. Corruption only works if both sides are prepared to allow it to.
A good start would be to make that worldcup throphy out of carbon fiber. Why is not Interpol or any other EU institution involved besides the Swiss authorities I wonder. It is like Bin Laden was living in Zurich and the Americans came to get him while nobody else knew.
Why would the EU be involved in an investigation that involves Switzerland, Russia, Qatar and the US? Not one of those countries involved in this bribery scandal are in the EU.
Its all hitting the fan now. In fairness these sponsors are cowards and possibly abusers of human rights themselves. I’m no human rights activist, but its a bit rich coming from the likes of Coca Cola certainly.
They knew that people are dying on site in Qatar and that the whole operation is a sham, but it took the FBI and the PR nightmare that faces FIFA for them to put pressure on FIFA.
Blatter should resign: if he knew there was corruption and did nothing he is complicit; if he didn’t know then he is not in control any longer and is unfit to be in charge; either way he needs to go.
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