Sony won’t renew its sponsorship deal with FIFA, citing rising costs. However, the company is among a number voicing concerns over negative publicity surrounding the organisation.
Sony’s current deal expires at the end of December, reports Nikkei, saying the company is “preferring to spend its money on completing structural reforms this fiscal year”. However, according to the Daily Mail, Sony is unhappy with accusations of corruption surrounding World Cup voting and internal FIFA elections. In June, Sony reportedly said the claims needed to “be investigated appropriately” and that FIFA should observe “its principles of integrity, ethics and fair play.”
FIFA currently has six major sponsors, although the airline Emirates will also be withdrawing support “following an evaluation of FIFA’s contract proposal which did not meet Emirates’ expectations.”
[via Sony backs away from FIFA sponsorship – GamesIndustry.biz]
This post originally appeared on Kotaku UK, bringing you original reporting, game culture and humour with a U from the British isles.
Comments
3 responses to “Sony Drops FIFA Sponsorship”
I’ll await Blatter’s response saying that Sony are being racist
I know Russia wasn’t a popular choice also, but let’s face it… if they pulled the World Cup from Qatar and gave it to anyone else… then the majority of negative press would start washing away.
We know that isn’t going to happen and nothing will likely change until FIFA has a good house clean.
It’ll be a long long time before the old boys club that is FIFA is actually transparent and corruption free. I’m not too fussed about England losing out to Russia. Blatter hates the English because we don’t agree with him. The Qatar decision though. His reasoning behind it; I want to bring the World Cup to people who’ve never seen it before. Australia’s never hosted it. Australia has the stadiums, transport and accommodation in place already to meet FIFA’s requirements without the need to hire cheap Indian labour to rush stadiums and hotels in time for 2022. Australia has an established football league with a growing fan base. Qatar has none of these things. To say that decision was for footballing reasons was, is and always will be complete bs
I’d like to think losing major sponsors might give them a kick up the bum into action, but I’ll be a realist and know there’s hundreds of other sponsors probably willing to turn a blind eye to corruption claims and will throw money at them
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