Is FIFA becoming a toxic brand?

FIFA is well known as a non-commercial, not-for-profit organization that uses significant funds in developing the game of soccer around the world. FIFA divides its sponsors into three groups — partners, World Cup sponsors and regional supporters.

Brands such as Coca-Cola, Hyundai-Kia Motors, Visa and Adidas have remained FIFA's loyal, long-term partners. Newcomers to FIFA's top roster of sponsors have been limited to the Middle East's Qatar Airways, Russian state oil giant Gazprom and Wanda Group. Hisense, the Chinese tech developer, has signed a large sponsorship deal with FIFA, as has China’s second-largest Dairy company the Mengniu Group.

Sports marketer and former FIFA employee Patrick Nally said FIFA's toxic brand is the main driving force behind Western firms disassociating themselves from sponsoring the World Cup.

We don’t know the moments that will come to define the World Cup this year, however, we can expect to see a different type of target market for our advertisers in 2018. In a sense, we will see a more commercially-global World Cup. It may become apparent that those moments that were most heavily tweeted and talked about in English on platforms like Twitter, that were used by large advertisers to market so effectively, can now be utilized by global companies.


refer:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/17/world-cup-2018-fifa-looks-to-the-east-as-it-struggles-to-find-sponsors.html

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