"The soccernomics of FIFA\u2019s changing sponsorship"

" The soccernomics of FIFA\u2019s changing sponsorship \r\n\r\nAs the fever dream of the Fifa World Cup recedes into the distance, a truth becomes apparent: the profile of football\u2019s main sponsors has evolved over the past 20 years, closely mirroring those seen in the global economy.\r\n\r\nThe tentpoles of Western capitalism, whose pitch-side advertising was the backdrop to some of football\u2019s most iconic moments, from Pele\u2019s lifting the Jules Rimet Trophy for the last time in 1970 to Diego Maradona\u2019s \u2018hand of God\u2019 in 1986 and Zinedine Zidane\u2019s headbutt in 2006, have given way to a new cohort of up-and-coming, deep-pocketed global brands mostly from fast-growing Asian countries.\r\n\r\nThe Fifa World Cup featured almost exclusively\u00a0 US , Japanese and Western European firms as sponsors until 2006, when Emirates Airlines became the first notable exception to a rule that was about to be subverted, according to an analysis by\u00a0 fDi \u00a0Intelligence. From 2006 onwards, the balance of Fifa World Cup sponsors has been shifting eastwards. In the Qatar World Cup, Asian sponsors outnumbered those from the US and Europe for the first time on record,\u00a0 fDi \u00a0analysis shows.\r\n\r\n New sponsors rise \r\n\r\nAlthough it may appear as a symbol of a more globalised market,\u00a0 of a more globalised market at first glance, Skema Business School professor of sport and geopolitical economy Simon Chadwick suggests otherwise: \u201cThe word \u2018globalisation\u2019 implies something quite diverse and multipolar. In reality, [Fifa] sponsorship networks are dominated increasingly by\u00a0 China and the Gulf region.\u201d\r\n\r\nThere is not so much a global widening as a global shift, he adds.\r\n\r\nThe pivotal moment was the global economic crisis of 2008\/09, Mr Chadwick says. Western corporations could not quite justify their engorged advertising budgets any longer: they needed solid proof that football helped, and were unable to find it.\r\n\r\nIn the aftermath of the global financial crisis, corporations from other countries moved in to fill the vacuum and Western corporations never quite regained their ground.\r\n\r\nAnd when Fifa was hit by a major corruption scandal in 2015, it once again it found itself struggling to find sponsors. It was then that Chinese companies quadrupled their efforts.\r\n\r\nFast-forward to the most recent World Cup, Chinese firms\u2019 share of sponsorship equalled that of their US peers for the second tournament in a row, while Japanese sponsors were notably absent. Forty years ago, in the 1982 World Cup, Japanese companies were the most represented.\r\n\r\n Sportswashing push\u00a0 \r\n\r\nBut sports marketing has changed in more ways than just geography. Sponsorship is no longer the preserve of hard-nosed North American businesses \u2014 it is increasingly dominated by state companies from autocratic countries often charged with rehabilitating their countries\u2019 image.\r\n\r\nOrganisations like Fifa, the International Olympic Committee and the Union of European Football Associations have \u201cwelcomed them with open arms\u201d, says Stanis Elsborg, senior analyst at sports thinktank Play the Game.\r\n\r\nThese firms\u2019 interest in sport is part of a political strategy, Mr Elsborg says, and a play for power in international relations. Who pays for the party shows just how much the world of sport is working in tandem with authoritarian regimes, he adds.\r\n\r\nThe sportswashing angle is clear when it comes to the business-to-business profile of some of the Fifa World Cup\u2019s main international sponsors. While the event\u2019s global audience is an obvious incentive for the world\u2019s biggest consumer brands, which can gain exposure to a billions-strong audience, it has little direct commercial value for the likes of Russian oil and gas powerhouse Gazprom, main partner of the 2018 World Cup, or its Middle Eastern peer Qatar Energy, main partner of the recent 2022 tournament, whose customers are typically other state or private oil and gas companies that refine and distribute their hydrocarbons.\r\n\r\nInstead, these sponsorships provide a platform to grease government-to-government relationships, Mr Chadwick says. An important part of sponsorship is always the so-called activation that comes after the paycheque: the corporate hospitality events where sponsors meet influential figures. They are \u201cprivate members\u2019 clubs\u201d, says Mr Chadwick, \u201ca form of fast-track diplomacy\u201d.\r\n\r\nSaudi Arabia may be among the last authoritarian countries to embrace sportswashing tactics, but it is doing so with a breathtaking level of assertiveness. Al Nassr FC, a club based in Saudi capital Riyadh with strong ties to the royal family, stunned the world when it signed Cristiano Ronaldo in late 2022, stumping up hundreds of millions of dollars for the Portuguese star to play for two years before becoming an ambassador for the country\u2019s bid to host the World Cup in 2030.\r\n\r\n Reflections of society\u00a0 \r\n\r\nSportswashing is nothing new, says Stefan Szymanski, professor of sport management at the University of Michigan. Using sports as a smokescreen for less salubrious business has been around since the 1936 Berlin Olympics, he points out, and state-run companies sponsoring sports is not in itself a big issue.\r\n\r\n\u201cPolitical interference and the instrumentalisation of sport by governments has always been cause for concern, but how much worse is that than Coca-Cola using sport to sell unhealthy drinks, or McDonalds to sell unhealthy food?\u201d he asks.\r\n\r\n\u201cSport is caught up in the anti-democratic wave that we see around the world,\u201d he admits, but adds that sports reflects society rather than directing it. \u201cAnyone in a country with open media could see what\u00a0 Russia \u00a0and\u00a0 Qatar \u00a0were doing with the World Cup,\u201d he says. \u201cHow much you cared depended on which side of the political divide you stood.\u201d\r\n\r\nFifa\u2019s modern sponsorship model was born in 1982. From that first batch of sponsors, only Coca-Cola survives. The beverage company has continued to associate its brand with the event every four years since then. Call it globalisation, call it sportswashing, Citizen Coke is always courtside.\r\n\r\n "

"The soccernomics of FIFA\u2019s changing sponsorship"

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