Fifa’s new broom Gianni Infantino exhibiting signs of limited shelf life
Good news and bad news once more for Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, who refuses to abandon his delusions of adequacy. The good news is Gianni has pre-announced there will be no racist incidents at the Russia World Cup next summer. “This is a very high priority,” he explained, “and we will make sure no incidents will happen.”
The bad news is there may be no local sponsors at the Russia World Cup next summer. I say “no local sponsors” – in fact, there is currently just one of a possible 20 places in Fifa’s regional sponsorship tier taken up, with that spot filled 16 months ago by Russia’s Alfa Bank. Since then, nothing.
Eight months ago, Fifa was saying it expected to announce new commercial deals “in the next weeks and months, and before the World Cup”. Still, no rush. No rush. Though perhaps we can all agree that “before the World Cup” would certainly be ideal. Even those signing up now would be cutting it fine – as one Olympics and World Cup sponsorship consultant told the New York Times this week: “If you are going to do a big deal and want to activate, it’s really late. You normally want your campaign in the market now, or by January and February; what’s more, it can take anywhere from six months to a year to plan it all.” Oh dear. Well, at least they’ve got Gazprom, which joined the party as a Fifa partner, alongside the other top- tier sponsors who didn’t allow their deals to elapse after The Unpleasantness. Those are the likes of Coca-Cola and McDonalds (although the latter was reportedly considering cutting ties in the summer, suggesting Fifa is so awful even Hamburglar is appalled).