"FIFA's Achilles heel is its sponsors," said a recent comment beneath a news story on the FIFA scandal. Let's boycott their products until they disassociate themselves from FIFA. Believe me, it is much easier to scare a corporation with negative PR (which means a drop in profits) than it is with governments.
This sentiment is not isolated. In the UK, Talk Sport breakfast show presenter Alan Brazil called upon his listeners to boycott FIFA's sponsors in an attempt to force the football world body's president, Sepp Blatter, to stand down, while on Twitter, users tweeted similar demands. One user asked: "Are #Coke #Visa #Hyundai #Adidas #Sony and #Emirates really ok with sponsoring an unethical, corrupt #Fifa? #Boycott."
For the Middle East, and the Gulf in particular, the troubles surrounding FIFA have hit home on two fronts. First, it highlights the dangers of sports sponsorship for companies such as Emirates, which paid $195 million to become a FIFA partner from 2007 to 2014. Second, there is Qatar.
The country was in rapture when it won the rights to host the World Cup in 2022. Now it is accused of "buying" the tournament and faces an irreversible tarnishing of its country brand.
All of this follows FIFA's Ethics Committee provisionally suspending vice president Jack Warner and executive committee member Mohamed bin Hammam over alleged violations of its code of ethics.The committee is investigating allegations that bin Hammam and Warner offered money to members to vote for bin Hammam in FIFA's presidential elections - elections that Blatter won unopposed.
After his suspension, Warner published an email sent to him by FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke that suggests Valcke believed Qatar "bought" the 2022 World Cup. Valcke has since said he was not intending to make "any reference to any purchase of votes or similar unethical behaviour" and what he meant was "the winning bid used their financial strength to lobby for support".
Adidas was the first major sponsor to raise concern, followed by Coca-Cola and then Emirates. Boutros Boutros, Emirates' divisional senior vice president, corporate communications, said: "Emirates, like all football fans around the world, is disappointed with the issues that are currently surrounding the administration of this sport. Emirates' sponsorship of all FIFA tournaments, including the FIFA World Cup, aims to help promote football and ensure that it is accessible to the billions of football fans; something FIFA has managed to do extremely well in recent years. We hope that these issues will be resolved as soon as possible and the outcome will be in the interest of the game and sport in general."
Unless FIFA cleans up the mess, all sponsors are in real danger of reeling from the impact of negative association.
"FIFA urgently needs to create an open, transparent system, for it cannot continue as an organisation that appears to answer to its own self interests," says Donal Kilalea, CEO and partner at Promoseven Sports Marketing. "If it hides its head in the sand and does nothing, then all will be affected, including the sponsors.
"Due to the mass of conflicting information, everything is being tarnished, including the Qatar bid and potentially the sponsors FIFA must work quickly and separate the issues. The winning bid from Qatar, due to the fact that it was a controversial decision, has been embroiled in all issues and this needs to be separated first and foremost.
For Tim Hill, managing director of Future Brand Middle East and Africa, if FIFA is to stand for "authenticity, unity, performance and integrity" it must enforce sweeping changes to its leadership and the governance of its brand to avoid early retirement from the global football arena. If it doesn't, sponsors could suffer.
"The balance of power between FIFA and its sponsors also needs to be re-addressed," believes Hill."Which brand dominates should really not be a debate if FIFA is the so-called ‘ruling organisation' of football.
But historical over reliance on sponsorship money and giving sponsors carte blanche over FIFA tournaments has left the FIFA brand with little equity or a positive profile. If the key sponsors decide to pull out as a reaction to the latest scandal (which would be an overreaction in my view) where would this leave the FIFA brand? Although I am sure there are many brands queuing up to take the place of any exiting sponsors, FIFA must begin to rebuild its own brand to be the dominant brand that directs and governs the relationship of its sponsors. Without it, FIFA is in real danger of losing relevance and value to all its stakeholders."
Leena Kewlani, director at MEC Access, points out that corruption scandals are nothing new. Last year it was cricket and the IPL, this year it's football. Nevertheless, "sponsors should be concerned but not necessarily pull out since that might lead to a complete breakdown."
Sponsors should in fact push for complete transparency, reorganisation and fair re-elections," she says. As for the overall impact, Hermann Behrens, CEO of The Brand Union Middle East, believes it will be less than is expected. "This is due to the fact that all you have to do is look at the sheer size of the sport, and the football fans' absolute love of the sport, to question whether this will have any real impact against the sponsors," he says. "Fans ultimately connect and associate with the teams and players themselves, not administrations, with the exception that the governing body's actions affect a team's performance or the ability to attain sponsorships.
"For fans to disconnect from something that is such a major part of their lives and that they have such passion for, they would have to see that the illegal activities are entrenched and accepted. In my opinion, as long as the public sees that the activities are being corrected and the sponsors are exerting their influence to correct the behaviours, the sport and the sponsorships will continue to keep enjoying public goodwill long after this has blown over."
