Still looking positive

FIFA set to hit US$5.66bil target amid troubled W-Cup sales

Even taking a financial hit from Italy and the United States failing to qualify, FIFA’s top salesman insists the 2018 World Cup will make its income target.

Italy’s loss in the playoffs wiped tens of millions of dollars off the value of an unsold broadcasting deal.

One of FIFA’s most valuable markets is typically worth US$200mil (RM818mil) per World Cup.

The surprise US elimination – as Panama qualified – affects finding four North American sponsors in a new, and stalled, regional sales programme.

Just one of 20 slots has been sold worldwide, to an oligarch-owned bank in host nation Russia.

“Everybody is annoyed with the non-qualification of the US which was not expected, to be honest,” said FIFA commercial director Philippe Le Floc’h, who has targeted deals with American tech firms.

Still, the French-Swiss official insists FIFA will reach a US$5.66bil (RM23bil) income target for the 2015-2018 sales period even with gaps in the lineup of 34 potential sponsors.

“Obviously the more positions we fill the better. On the other hand, we are not going to go cheap,” Le Floc’h told reporters on Thursday in his first media interview since joining FIFA 14 months ago.

“The job we have to do is make sure that our financial projections, our budget numbers, are delivered. And they will be delivered,” he said.

FIFA do not disclose values of individual deals, though the tier of regional sponsors earned US$4mil (RM16mil) in 2016 from Russia’s AlfaBank, according to the football body’s financial report.

Le Floc’h inherited a sales plan that was unproven even before FIFA, and their already battered image, were rocked in May 2015 when American and Swiss federal prosecutors unsealed sweeping investigations of corruption.

In the fallout, FIFA’s then-heads of marketing and broadcast sales left though neither was publicly implicated.

The backdrop to 2018 World Cup sales – typically in two-tournament deals with the 2022 edition – has included uncertainty over FIFA’s exposure to prosecution, falling oil prices, sanctions imposed on Russian businessmen and issues with the next host in line, Qatar.

“It is complicated, especially in a market where (potential partners) see some crisis around,” Le Floc’h acknowledged.

FIFA might not meet the US$5.66bil total revenue they reported for the 2014 World Cup.

Then, some deals were signed a decade ago before the global financial downturn.

“The bad time is behind us. In the end, we bring the biggest show on earth,” Le Floc’h said at FIFA’s hotel base in Moscow ahead of the 2018 tournament draw in the State Kremlin Palace.

The World Cup is the most-watched sports event. More than 1 billion viewers saw some of the 2014 final and a global average audience approached 600 million.

Indeed, broadcast deals for 2018 struck six years ago – with Fox and Telemundo in the US and the Qatar-owned network now called BeIN Sports – cushion FIFA from the sponsor problem.

Expected US$3bil (RM12bil) broadcast revenue for this World Cup rises from US$2.43bil (RM10bil) for the 2014 edition.