FIFA got rid of Mastercard

The football championships will be sponsored by VISA MasterCard International filed a lawsuit against the American District Court of the Southern District of New York. The defendant is the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA). Master requires invalid agreement with Visa International for the sponsorship of the 2010 and 2014 World Cup.

Under the terms of the contract signed in 2002, MasterCard received the right to be the first to abandon the status of an official and exclusive sponsor of future events as part of the FIFA world championships.

This condition prevented the conclusion of the FIFA agreement with Visa. So, at least, Mastercard managers considered it. As it turned out, they were mistaken.

FIFA began negotiations with competitors. And when she agreed, she simply did not prolong the contract.

This is the essence of the MasterCard claim to FIFA. In the global payment system, the company feels brutally deceived and punished. The lawsuit mentions "hundreds of millions of dollars of losses" incurred by MasterCard in the cost of a long -term advertising company. And also talks about the actual direct deception. Representatives of MasterCard claim that FIFA assured them that negotiations with VISA were stopped. Maybe, however, because the agreement has already been reached.

As the Gazeta was told in the press service of the Russian representative office of VISA, the latter really negotiated with FIFA, "as a result of which the company entered into a global sponsorship agreement with the Federation in accordance with all legal norms." “FIFA assured us that the signed agreement is valid, has full legal force and does not violate the rights of MasterCard,” said Visa representative.

The head of the legal department of Mastercard International Noah Hanft commented on the situation as follows: “This FIFA act is a deceptive violation of the pre -emptive MasterCard right to prolong the contract, especially after we signed the FIFA proposal.”

“MasterCard will do the case until the FIFA complies with the terms of the 96 -page agreement with MasterCard, which grants us the right to be an official sponsor and at the subsequent FIFA world championships,” Hanft says. MasterCard continues to develop programs together with its partners and consumers as part of the FIFA 2006 World Cup in Germany, which will begin in June.

Thus, in addition to the fact that Visa until 2012 is an official sponsor of the Olympic Games, now it will act as a sponsor of the World Cup from January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2014.

Sponsorship of sports championships is the most important engine of brands of payment systems. This is not hidden by MasterCard representatives themselves. According to their estimates, only two events are comparable in scale to reach the global audience - the World Cups and the Olympic Games. Both events will now sponsor Visa. And this means the beginning of this global warfare system. Having violated balance, Visa will hold a blow. Whether in this case the consumer will win is still unclear, but it will be difficult to talk about the division of the market by two players.

04.24.2006 / Marina Kadykova, the material was published in the newspaper No. 72 dated 04.25.2006.