FIFA loses three major sponsors, but is it enough to bring about change?
FIFA is accountable to nobody. Soccer's governing body has somehow managed to wrangle immunity from the law in Switzerland, where it is headquartered. And whenever it stages a World Cup in some other unfortunate country, it creates a state within the state where, once again, it is legally untouchable.
FIFA, however, is dependent. For its income streams, it relies primarily on broadcast deals, ticket sales and sponsorship. In that last category, good for billions of dollars, FIFA is hurting. At length, its shoddy stewardship of the game – the corruption, the laughable governance, the total lack of transparency – is beginning to hurt the organization's bottom line.
An investigation from English newspaper The Telegraph found that three more major FIFA sponsors – Castrol, Continental and Johnson & Johnson – have pulled out, while Sony and Emirates Airlines had already done so. The three new defectors had ended their partnership with FIFA quietly, which is why it took the paper making specific enquiries to discover that their sponsorships were over. (On Friday, FIFA dismissed the companies' decisions as your run-of-the-mill "rotations at the end of a sponsorship cycle.")
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Several sponsors had publicly expressed their concerns following the disastrous fallout from the corruption report compiled by former U.S. attorney Michael Garcia late last year. He had complained bitterly – before quitting his role with FIFA when his appeal was denied – that the findings of his investigation were heavily redacted and misrepresented when a summary of sorts was released, clearing Russia and Qatar of sufficient wrongdoing to recall the World Cups they were awarded for 2018 and 2022, respectively.
But the only thing that will really take FIFA to task under the decadent and depraved leadership of President Sepp Blatter is the loss of sponsorship money. While the organization allegedly has more than a billion dollars in cash reserves, questions will be asked of Blatter and his executive committee once the gravy train grinds to a halt.
It's sort of sad that the discontent of plenty of member nations, the naked selling of World Cups and other privileges, or the total loss of confidence from soccer fans the world over can't bring about change, but that the cutting off of the money flow – basically, the chopping up of FIFA's credit cards – might force a shift.
When the taint of FIFA's dirty soot becomes so heavy that no major companies want anything to do with it, even if that means not getting to plaster their logo all over the world's biggest sporting event, something will have to give. That won't happen anytime soon. There will probably be companies ready to take the place of those that have left. Gazprom and Qatar Airways have already signed on to sponsor the World Cups in their respective home countries.
But maybe, someday, FIFA will run out of companies that are willing to be associated with it. Only then will it truly have to change how it does things.
Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.
