A summer Thursday on the shores of Lake Geneva. I am in a salon in Lausanne’s plush Palace hotel talking to Temel Kotil, President and chief executive of Turkish Airlines.
We are just days away from the curtain being drawn on the airline’s sponsorship of Manchester United, arguably the world’s favourite football club (Aeroflot have become the club’s sponsor). Yet I don’t think I have ever met a business leader so bursting with enthusiasm about the effect sporting partnerships can have on multinational companies.
“Sponsoring sport is the smartest way to do marketing,” Kotil, a relatively short, moustachioed man with distinctive arching eyebrows, tells me.