Argentina won the World Cup yesterday in what might be the greatest final ever played. Messi got his trophy. A billion people watched. And for most of the last month, the discourse about this tournament has existed in a strange split screen: the games are incredible AND the host country's human rights record is abysmal. Both things remain true simultaneously.
For brands that sponsored this World Cup, that duality is a strategic nightmare.
Adidas, Coca-Cola, Visa, Hyundai, McDonald's, Budweiser. These are the FIFA partners who paid hundreds of millions to be associated with the biggest sporting event on earth. And for the entire lead-up to the tournament, the conversation wasn't about football. It was about the thousands of migrant workers who died building stadiums, Qatar's criminalization of homosexuality, and the nakedness of sportswashing as a geopolitical strategy.
So what does a sponsor do? They did what sponsors always do: stayed quiet, posted matchday content, and hoped the quality of the football would eventually overwhelm the ethical discourse. And honestly? For the most part, it worked. By the group stage, most casual fans were talking about the games, not the conditions. The sportswashing succeeded at scale.
They did what sponsors always do: stayed quiet, posted matchday content, and hoped the quality of the football would eventually overwhelm the ethical discourse.
But I want to push on this because I think it represents an increasingly important strategic question: At what point does your brand's association with an event become a liability rather than an asset? And who gets to make that call?
Budweiser had perhaps the most telling moment. Qatar banned beer sales at stadiums just days before the tournament started. Budweiser, a major sponsor, posted on Twitter: "Well, this is awkward." Then deleted it. Then Bud Light Mexico reposted it. The whole thing was messy and revealing. Here's a brand that paid a fortune for an association and then got publicly humiliated by the very entity it was paying. They couldn't even serve their product at the event they sponsored.
The lesson isn't that brands shouldn't sponsor sporting events. It's that the diligence framework for major sponsorships needs to expand beyond reach and engagement metrics to include genuine ethical risk assessment.
Questions that should be on the checklist:
What is the worst headline that could be written about our association with this event? Can we live with that headline? If the event becomes controversial, do we have an exit clause? If we can't exit, what's our response framework? Have we talked to our employees about this, particularly employees from affected communities?
I don't think any brand did this well. The ones that said nothing look complicit. The ones that made vague statements about values while cashing in on the association look hypocritical. And the ones that actually pulled out (there weren't many) never got enough credit for it.
The World Cup was extraordinary football. It was also a $220 billion exercise in reputation laundering by a petrostate. Brands got to choose which part of that story they wanted to be in. Most chose money. I understand why. But the reckoning for that choice is coming, and it'll arrive the next time one of these sponsors runs a campaign about "doing the right thing." Consumers have long memories.
Messi deserved his trophy. The people who built those stadiums deserved better. Both things are true.