By Andrew Warshaw
April 20 – Having suffered the humiliation of being thrown off FFA’s decision-making Council for failing an eligibility test, Russian football supremo Vitaly Mukto seems to be using every possibility to subtlety strike back at football’s world governing body.
Last week, Mutko accused FIFA of overcharging his country for TV rights for next year’s World Cup finals. And now, he says, FIFA has only itself to blame for alienating potential new sponsors.
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister, who also heads the World Cup organising committee and the Russian Football Union, said FIFA’s difficulties in securing commercial backers was directly linked to the ongoing corruption crisis rather than anything to do with the fact that the World Cup is taking place in his country or Russia’s own recent doping scandal.
FIFA’s problems, he says, “are tied to the fact that there was a huge and big attack” against it.
“FIFA is running into difficulties not for the 2018 World Cup in Russia but in general. FIFA has been accused of corruption and the like, they have ruined themselves,” Mutko was quoted as saying by Russian media outlets. “The losses in terms of image are colossal.”
Although a couple of fresh sponsors have just come on board, FIFA has failed to find major new partners since the corruption scandal that brought the organisation to knees. Sony and the airline Emirates ended their terms as top-level backers and FIFA this month announced hefty financial losses for 2016.
Mutko’s comments were in reaction to a Financial Times article which revealed that while FIFA had more than 20 sponsors for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, it now has only 10 for Russia.
“No question that in the latter era of the (Sepp) Blatter period, the FIFA brand became toxic,” the paper quoted Michael Payne, a former marketing head at the International Olympic Committee, as saying.
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