THE FIFA WORLD CUP 2014 - 2018 - 2022 The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup, an international association soccer competition, was founded on May 1, 1904 when the first international match was played between Belgium and France in Brussels. The inaugural FIFA World Cup was in Uruguay, the host nation, with 13 men’s football teams in July 1930. This successful nongovernmental organization currently holds the FIFA World Cup every four years with 32 teams having the quality to participate in the tournament. In the FIFA congress, Joseph Sepp Blatter has been the president for more than 15 years. The congress has 208 member associations and 6 confederations. The purpose of the football’s international governing body is to maintain the popularity of soccer game globally and emphasize the unity, cultural and humanitarian values. Besides to the present structure and purpose of the congress, the main FIFA partners were Adidas, Cola-Cola, Emirates, Sony, Hyundai, and Visa for 2014 (“Fifa Classic Football and Partners” par. 2). Additionally, the income statement of FIFA is demonstrated at right. In the graph, it is indicated that the soccer association was able to make $220 million when it held the World Cup in South Africa (Fifa Financial Report p 15). On October 30, 2007, Brazil was chosen as the host nation for 2014 FIFA World Cup. At the time, the country had one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The public reaction was inexpressible since the Land of Soccer would host the world's most popular sports tournament and its fans from all over the world. However, some doubts arose in June 2013 when the first match of the Confederations Cup was played. The State of Brazil faced a severe crisis of confidence deepened by a sense of economic decline and growing gap between social classes. The protests propelled FIFA president Sepp Blatter to explain that “FIFA cannot be held responsible for social discrepancy in the country” (NY Daily News par 11). However, the protestors accused the government and FIFA due to the corruption and waste of money (Rapoza par 1-4). According to their beliefs, spending a great amount of money on expensive stadiums and touristic attractions was pointless instead of improving social services such as medical, education and transportation. Basically, as Rapoza, from the Forbes Magazine, said, “The kingpin of FIFA World Cup soccer has managed to stage the most anti-FIFA protests ever”. Furthermore, the press and social media led hundreds of thousands of people around the world to support Anti-World Cup protestors. Besides to the government in Brazil, it was the proper time for FIFA to do self-criticism and seek permanent solutions to regain the public trust. The FIFA Communications & PA Division focuses on the four major areas of Media, Corporate Communications, Content Management Services, and New Media. All these areas are responsible for the FIFA’s public & media relations, reputation ...

1. THE FIFA WORLD CUP 2014 - 2018 - 2022
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association
(FIFA) World Cup, an international association soccer
competition, was founded on May 1, 1904 when the first
international match was played between Belgium and France in
Brussels. The inaugural FIFA World Cup was in Uruguay, the
host nation, with 13 men’s football teams in July 1930. This
successful nongovernmental organization currently holds the
FIFA World Cup every four years with 32 teams having the
quality to participate in the tournament. In the FIFA congress,
Joseph Sepp Blatter has been the president for more than 15
years. The congress has 208 member associations and 6
confederations. The purpose of the football’s international
governing body is to maintain the popularity of soccer game
globally and emphasize the unity, cultural and humanitarian
values. Besides to the present structure and purpose of the
congress, the main FIFA partners were Adidas, Cola-Cola,
Emirates, Sony, Hyundai, and Visa for 2014 (“Fifa Classic
Football and Partners” par. 2). Additionally, the income
statement of FIFA is demonstrated at right. In the graph, it is
indicated that the soccer association was able to make $220
million when it held the World Cup in South Africa (Fifa
Financial Report p 15).
On October 30, 2007, Brazil was chosen as the host nation
for 2014 FIFA World Cup. At the time, the country had one of
the fastest growing economies in the world. The public reaction
was inexpressible since the Land of Soccer would host the
world's most popular sports tournament and its fans from all
over the world. However, some doubts arose in June 2013 when
the first match of the Confederations Cup was played. The State
of Brazil faced a severe crisis of confidence deepened by a
sense of economic decline and growing gap between social

2. classes. The protests propelled FIFA president Sepp Blatter to
explain that “FIFA cannot be held responsible for social
discrepancy in the country” (NY Daily News par 11). However,
the protestors accused the government and FIFA due to the
corruption and waste of money (Rapoza par 1-4). According to
their beliefs, spending a great amount of money on expensive
stadiums and touristic attractions was pointless instead of
improving social services such as medical, education and
transportation. Basically, as Rapoza, from the Forbes Magazine,
said, “The kingpin of FIFA World Cup soccer has managed to
stage the most anti-FIFA protests ever”. Furthermore, the press
and social media led hundreds of thousands of people around
the world to support Anti-World Cup protestors. Besides to the
government in Brazil, it was the proper time for FIFA to do
self-criticism and seek permanent solutions to regain the public
trust.
The FIFA Communications & PA Division focuses on the
four major areas of Media, Corporate Communications, Content
Management Services, and New Media. All these areas are
responsible for the FIFA’s public & media relations, reputation
management, and its crisis communication. According to
Goodman, the Chief Communication Officer of FIFA needed to
build trust with all internal and external audiences. Therefore,
right after the first protests and news against FIFA World Cup,
the CCO should have organized meetings with other chief
executives to improve the internal relationship and determine
the next strategy (Goodman 30-32). He could also have
responded the problems coordinating with the Brazilian
government, all the teams and their partners.
After the crisis communication, the CCO needed to do the
press conference for the general public information on TV
channels and newspapers. In the press conference, he should
have begun with apologizing to people in the difficult
circumstances as a result of the unethical issues. The CCO
could also have suggested the partners would start a donation
fund for Brazilians in poverty. Sony donated electronic

3. equipment for schools and Mesut Ozil, a football superstar,
gave his World Cup Prize for the charity programs in Brazil
(Fifa.com par 3 & RT News par 2). Other two of the partners,
Adidas and Visa, should have donated pairs of shoes to
Brazilian kids in need and provided medical equipment with
superior technology. Hereby, the protestors and Brazilians in
need could have communicated with the FIFA representatives
and soccer players in the charity events. They might have
changed their attitudes towards the World Cup. As Goodman
explains, although this remedy was a local act, it would have a
global impact of the positive reputation equity with all
audience. The last responsibility of the CCO in the Brazil case,
is to understand budgets when organizing the donation
campaigns (Goodman ch 2).
FIFA as a corporation has two primary goals: making
profits and fulfilling the expectation of being a good citizen.
Therefore, the Communications & PA Division should avoid
using the Marketing Funnel or AIDA Model by Lewis that
consists of awareness, interest, desire, and action stages. Based
on the model, FIFA already increased the awareness of the
World Cup Brazil and the interest of the soccer fans to support
the tournament. The desire to feel the atmosphere of the
inspiring tournament encouraged the thousands of people to
purchase their tickets of the World Cup Brazil. However, FIFA
missed the following stages after the action stage. They are the
confidence and advocacy at scale stagesemphasized in the
Arthur W. Page Society New Model. According to the New
Model, the Communications & PA Division takes more
responsibility before, during, and after the tournament. Initially,
the CCO is expected to collaborate with the executive
committee to define the corporate beliefs, values, purpose, and
actions to resonate its distinctive corporate character in the
sport industry. According to its official website, “the mission
statement of FIFA is to improve the game of football constantly
and promote it globally in the light of its unifying, educational,
cultural and humanitarian values and building a better future,

4. particularly through youth and development programmes".
Along with this shared belief, the members of the FIFA
congress and all soccer fans take an action to lead FIFA.
Consequently, their action should increase the confidence
toward to the World Cup, which was missing in the Brazil
contest. In the new model, the target audience, FIFA soccer
fans, becomes a part of the interactive communication. In
addition to the satisfaction of the audience, the Communications
& PA Division is supposed to create an advocacy at scale
through the “third person effect”. In other words, many in the
target audience will convince a large number of people to show
the right way to the FIFA Congress (Goodman ch 7).
For the prospective tournaments in Russia and Qatar,
respectively, the Communications & PA Division should apply
the Arthur W. Page Society New Model to take a prior action
against any controversial issues and sustain the brand reputation
of FIFA. In July 2014, Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia,
stated that the country would put in $20 billion on the 2018
competition after the Sochi Winter Games with the $51 billion
expense, the most expensive Olympics. Also the tournament
inspectors are convinced with the process of the stadiums and
infrastructure built in Russia (Fitzpatrick par 5-6). However,
FIFA needs to handle a serious issue related to the 2018 World
Cup, which is the racism plaguing in Russian soccer. When
going to back to the date of October 23, 2014, Manchester
City’s Ivory Coast star Yaya Toure complained referee Ovidiu
Hategan about the abuse from CSKA Moscow fans in the
Champions League match (Edwards). According to the FIFA’s
final decision, CSKA Moscow had to play its next three matches
in an empty stadium (Bonesteel par 1). However, several Black
soccer players still have doubts that FIFA and Russia would be
able to crack down on racism in the 2018 contest. Thus, Toure
stated that he might avoid attending to the tournament to
boycott the World Cup Russia. The public announcement
resulted in Putin and Blatter’s “zero tolerance” promise against
racism as a crisis on-set defense (Liburd).

5. Besides to the efforts of Putin and Blatter against racism,
the Communications & PA Division of FIFA cannot resemble to
the three monkeys - hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil
- against the human right issues. Therefore, it should start with
the improvement in the belief stage. Here, the CCO may
collaborate with the Marketing Division to create a video clip to
promote dialogue, and peace among peoples. In this video with
the sponsorship of the partners, the top soccer stars from
different nations should encourage their fans to take a part in
the campaign. Social media plays an inevitable role to enhance
the speed and understanding of the message, both emotional and
rational. Thus, the FIFA soccer players in the video may
announce specific hash tags such as “#antiracism” so that the
sport fans from different countries will take an action and use
them when they post pictures from the audience of the
tournament. Furthermore, the CCO should communicate with
the government soccer team from Russia to deliver anti-racism
messages to the Russian fans. With this way, they can
encourage the African soccer players to attend the contest.
Besides to the press and social media effect, FIFA and Russian
government should use the superior technology such as cameras
and sophisticated security teams to detect and punish groups of
audience, who attempt to abuse players under racism.
Henceforth, FIFA would maintain the spirit of fair play and
respect. It would encourage more anti-racists and African
families to attend the 2018 tournament.
It’s has been almost five years now since Qatar, the first
country in Saudi Arabia selected as the host nation of the World
Cup 2022. Nevertheless, a long investigation into the bidding
process has been launched prior to the contest in Brazil because
Britain’s Sunday Times alleged secret payments by Qatar to
FIFA members. Not only the Sunday Times, but also did the
Economist, launch the cover page of “Beautiful game, ugly
business” in June 2014 to point out the corruption. The well-
known British magazine extended the issue of the host-selection
process by underlying the ethical principles based on the 430-

6. page investigation report written by Michael Garcia, the former
attorney for the southern district of New York. However,
FIFA’s ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckhart dismissed the report
due to its “numerous materially incomplete and erroneous
representations of the facts”. Moreover, FIFA decided to release
only 42-page summary of the report with the insistence of
Eckhart (Gibson par 2). Their decision disregarded the
transparency rule of the organization. Instead, based on the
culture of FIFA, they should have made the full report public.
On the other hand, the FIFA Communications & PA
Division was more successful to complete the five stages of the
New Model in this case. The association already started to
promote the consistent belief emphasizing its mission statement.
With this way, soccer fans would have a good attitude toward to
the World Cup 2022 in Qatar. Furthermore, FIFA took prior
action to build trust all internal and external audiences. After
completing the inquiry, the governing body of the association
used the free media and made a press conference to respond to
the criticism. The primary rule of the traditional press is to tell
the truth. Thus, in the beginning of the conference, the
governing body did not admit the allegation and stated that up
to now all individuals in the bribery scandal were banned from
the World Cups. Consequently, Qatar would keep its bid for the
World Cup 2022. The officials were concise to state the main
points and eliminate the question marks in people’ minds. They
supported the inquiry with the report released by the
adjudicatory arm of FIFA’s ethics committee (Borden par 3). In
order to protect transparency and democracy in the congress,
FIFA took into consideration Garcia’s recommendations despite
of its errors. Henceforth, the association decided to adjust the
host selection process held by the only executive board. Instead,
all 208 members of the congress will be able to vote to select
the host nation. Also, FIFA may reshape the bidding process by
selecting only one World Cup at once rather than two
prospective contests (Borden par 22). Lastly, CCO plays an
effective role in order to manage the reputation of the

7. association and counsel to Mr. Blatter. With this way, FIFA will
be able to protect its good corporate image and advance
communication through engaging with media.
Another issue with the World Cup Qatar is the working
conditions of the construction workers. The International Trade
Union Confederation claims that the opening game of the 2022
World Cup would be the reason to the death of 4000
construction workers because Qatari government disregards the
human rights due to forcing the immigrants to work for long
hours in the sun (Manfret). It is an astonishing number of deaths
particularly for FIFA, which pursues the humanitarian values.
In this case, the Communications and PA Division ought to
improve the employee relations and corporate reputation. For
instance, the investigation team appointed by FIFA can give a
full report to the congress to indicate the circumstances in
Qatar, every six months. FIFA necessarily seek the solution and
prove it with an action. The association should improve the trust
among the employees so that it has to listen the construction
workers. After the investigation report, the CCO ought to lead
the congress in order to improve the corporate image and
advanced communication through engaging with the media.
Thus, the governing body of the association should use the free
media and make a press conference to respond to criticism.
In conclusion, FIFA World Cup is a key to open the doors
of inspiration, unity, and fair play. It obviously breaks down
barriers between countries all around the world. Therefore,
FIFA World Cup, as the most watched sport event, should be
more transparent and reliable. The CCO ought to dedicate the
resources publicly for the following FIFA World Cups.
Sometimes he has to take the charge of the association to be
more collaborative with the government and soccer fans in order
to prevent any ethical or human rights issues and sustain social
services in the host nation. Last but not least, the association
ought to rely on soccer fans to maintain its good corporate
image and build a strong reservoir of trust (Goodman 32-36).

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