This is a guest post by Diana Tenjes who enjoys writing about the benefits of massage for her website Massage Bed.
Despite all the wonderful and positive things that have come out of this World Cup, FIFA and its heavy-handed tactics are not going unnoticed. The world’s football governing body is not hiding the fact that it is making an enormous amount of money from the tournament, but this doesn’t mean it needs to resort to bullying in order to show the world who the football boss is. Some of Fifa’s handling of situations has even threatened to overshadow the wonderful game unfolding on the pitch.
Fifa’s income for this World Cup cycle, from 2007-2010, is estimated to be at least $3.2 billion. Almost half of that money comes from sponsorship and licensing, while the rest originates from the sale of TV rights around the world. FIFA has forced South Africa to fall in line with what they call “Ambush Marketing.” This is Fifa president Sepp Blatter’s attempt to quash the threat of any brand that is not an official sponsor of the World Cup. Basically, if FIFA doesn’t receive money for the use of promoting a brand, it doesn’t want to see that brand exist in or around the World Cup.
The example that best encapsulates Fifa’s shortcomings in this area is that of the young Dutch women who were arrested while supporting Holland in their first World Cup match against Denmark. The 36 women, who were detained on the grounds of ambush marketing, were wearing scantily clad orange outfits with the word Bavaria, a beer company, on their tops. The arrest and detainment of these women highlights the pressure Fifa feels it’s under to protect its interests, in particular, its economic interests. By allowing only Budweiser, the official sponsor, to be sold and advertised at the stadiums in South Africa, Blatter is protecting Fifa’s pockets while bullying smaller brands in the process.
Not only is Fifa demonstrating its greed with situations like this, but also its bullying tactics by swiftly arresting these women, and trying two of them in World Cup courts specifically set up in South Africa for just such minor infringements. The main question remains as to why Fifa hasn’t decided to simply sue the beer company rather than threaten two innocent employees with up to six months in prison. If they really felt their monetary interests were in danger, than this would be the appropriate response. Instead, they’ve decided to bully small beer company Bavaria, while simultaneously giving it an enormous amount of publicity by calling more attention to the situation than was ever necessary.
This is a guest post by Diana Tenjes who enjoys writing about the benefits of massage for her website Massage Bed.
