It’s damage control time for soccer’s FIFA. Reuters is reporting every soccer fan’s favorite dysfunctional, semi-autocratic governing body is meeting behind closed doors in Zurich with key World Cup sponsors tomorrow, as the company tries to contain the fallout from the massive bribery scandal that has ensnared 9 officials so far.
While FIFA president Sepp Blatter is still around until he steps down in February, it’s not a stretch to imagine FIFA officials will send Sepp out on a fact-finding mission to some remote area of the globe while this crucial meeting takes place.
Big World Cup sponsors like Coca-Cola (KO), Visa (V), and McDonald's (MCD) are demanding changes - and as many fans and commentators will tell you - rightfully so. Yahoo Finance’s Mike Santoli believes the sponsors, who pay hundreds of millions of dollars for exclusive rights, can really put the screws to a squirrely FIFA.
“I think [sponsors] have tremendous leverage,” he says in the attached video. “I think this whole situation at this point really plays to the strength of these multinational consumer brands that now seem to have a better position to try and dictate how this organization is run.”
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And with a better position to oversee changes, these organizations may actually benefit from a turnaround. “At this stage, if your Visa or Coca-Cola or somebody like that, you like where it's gotten to now because you weather that first storm of publicity, of being attached to this group, and now you get to consider to be the kind of the ‘fix it’ operation,” Santoli notes.
Despite all its legal issues and dysfunction, the fact that sponsors haven’t pulled out of funding FIFA and it’s marquee World Cup tournament shows how important sports are for these multinational brands. “It’s just worth the risk,” Santoli concludes. “These brands say, ‘we have to have exposure to this massive global audience that you basically can't replicate anywhere else.’”
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