Visa is synonymous with the World Cup. If ever an event and a brand were sympatico, it’s the World Cup with its unequaled global reach and Visa, the most recognizable of all credit card companies. (Hey FIFA and Visa even sound alike.) But after the recent FIFA arrests Visa has said it will “reassess” its longstanding sponsorship deal with the FIFA World Cup. Visa issued a statement huffing and puffing about FIFA’s need to take “swift and immediate steps” to address the issues that plague it. Visa pays FIFA somewhere near $200 million to sponsor each World Cup for a four-year period.
But there is absolutely zero chance Visa will drop its sponsorship no matter what further revelations about FIFA emerge. Because, simply put, the World Cup is the only game in town. There is nothing like it. As Visa itself says: “Visa became a sponsor of FIFA because the World Cup is one of the few truly global sporting events with the power to unite people from around the world.”
