Russia World Cup having trouble signing sponsors

Soccer’s biggest event is 16 months away and FIFA is finding that corporate sponsors are not flocking to sign up for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Bloomberg reports that thus far, FIFA has only signed one new sponsor, Wanda Group from China.

At the same point for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, FIFA had almost all of its agreements in place and most of the sponsors had confirmed their commitments more than three years before the first game.

So what is the deal? It is Russia? Is it the FIFA corruption scandal? Has the sports sponsorship bubble burst? Well, probably not the latter, but many companies are wondering if FIFA has its affairs in order after President Sepp Blatter was ousted in 2015.

Right now, FIFA has brought in nine companies to sponsor the Russia World Cup compared with 20 at this point for Brazil. But FIFA isnt’ worried about the pace of its sales. It told Bloomberg that “The sales process is ongoing and new commercial affiliates will join the marketing program before the FIFA World Cup.”

So for now, FIFA is forging ahead and on the surface is not worried about the pace of sponsorship sales for Russia. But, the fact that companies had signed up far in advance of Brazil shows some reluctance by traditional sponsors for Russia. As the event gets closer, companies will sign up and FIFA should have its goal of a full sponsorship fulfilled, but it’s going to be a struggle for a while.

[Bloomberg]