As Fifa continue with presidential elections despite accusations of bribery and corruption, their key sponsors Emirates Airlines, Coca-Cola and Adidas - as Coca-Cola spokesman Petro Kacur said "The current allegations being raised are distressing and bad for the sport". The issue here is image transfer potential (see Consumer PR lecture) - if football looks bad, so do its sponsors. See this Sky News article for more info.
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What should be the best practice at such time by the PR department of FIFA. as these accusations does not look to come to end soon.
ReplyDeleteFifa must have been in full on crisis management mode: finding credible third parties to draw attention away from corruption accusations, downplaying these as rumour and hearsay, and looking forward to post-election stability. They must be trying to find positive stories, perhaps about the work of Fifa in deprived communities around the world. However as the Qatar world cup approaches, these accusations will resurface so a crisis plan for this scenario should be developed. Meanwhile, the sponsors may be considering more reputable sports, such as rugby, as alternatives - but balancing this against the worldwide reach of Fifa.
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