FIFA score CSR own goal in 2010 World Cup – part 2

Well its over for another four years! After a month of football between 32 nations it took Spain 116 minutes to finally break the Dutch resistance in an ill-tempered final that wasn’t the best possible advertisement for the sport. Overall as a fan I was pleased and not to claim too much of a sage mentality but the two sides I predicted would contest the final actually did, just a shame it wasn’t a better match. FIFA of course are the giant organising structure behind world football who are responsible for preparing the event and the qualification process that leads to it.  In my previous post I looked at how this years event in South Africa had not achieved the CSR goals that might have been hoped for and wanted to conclude that story as today’s article.

It seems that optimism wasn’t lacking when the blueprint for South Africa as host was initially drawn out, in keeping with that the UN Environment Programme went as far as stating the 2010 World Cup would actually be a carbon neutral event. This has not happened and now millions of dollars (estimated at or near $15million) will need to be spent of offset the emissions.

In a nation with high unemployment of over 24% and about half the population living below the poverty line it does not seem that FIFA can score well on social awareness in general. The country is very difficult to travel within which makes access neither easy nor especially affordable. Ticket prices were also far too high to be in line with the economics of typical residents of South Africa. While fans travel from all around the globe between 40% and 70% of tickets are designed to be available for public sale within the host nation. The huge amounts of empty seats at many matches show this has not been a success, surely FIFA could have made some of their $3.3billion available to provide tickets for locals as needed? I’ve never seen so many stadiums that were not completely full at a World Cup and the local ticket prices were surely the factor. The cheapest seats were about $75 which explains the issue quite plainly.

FIFA aren’t alone in the leverage of huge sponsorship taking precedence in negotiations that bring added revenue bit complaints are that the giant corporations have left no room for small and local business to prosper from the event. Local food, drink and souvenir vendors who normally dot the area surrounding the stadia have been driven away by the outlandish costs of registration for an ‘official World Cup Stall’ which runs at nearly $8,000. Thus the anticipated trickle down spending helping the local community is reduced significantly on match days.

It wouldn’t be fair of me to suggest that FIFA have failed in every aspect of CSR for the World Cup. There have been numerous successes that should also be highlighted.

• Coca Cola and others provided millions of bottles of safe drinking water to local schools (but in plastic bottles!)
• A number of team jerseys made by Nike were actually made from recycled plastic bottles (see Coca-Cola above)
• Puma the sportswear giant are forging new alliances with sustainable suppliers in South Africa
• FIFA have launched local academies for football clubs which promote better health, diet and social awareness via football

In an historic sense the pride that hosting the event has brought to South Africa has an inherent value. Indeed, it has been a milestone event for the integration of South Africa in terms of prestige after such a trouble ridden past. The entire continent of Africa rejoiced in the sense of occasion, the only major downside was FIFA not demonstrating enough care and attention to creating a CSR strategy that reached the desired goals.