Implications for corporate sponsors arising from scandals in sport. The case of Adidas and FIFA

This working paper assesses how sponsorship managers should evaluate sponsored-entity related scandals. To achieve this, a content analysis of secondary sources is conducted, which evaluates how scandals affect corporate sponsors and analyses different factors that have to be considered before deciding on whether to terminate a sponsorship or not. The recent scandals involving FIFA is used as the case study for this paper. We consider the effect of the scandal on one of FIFA’s main sponsors; Adidas. Our research suggests that assessing scandals from a purely ethical perspective is not feasible and a holistic approach should be employed. Research indicates that Adidas did not suffer any negative implications from the FIFA scandal and that a termination of the sponsorship would have been the wrong decision. It suggests that many factors, such as the potential to overcome a scandal unharmed, potentially negative effects from exiting a sponsorship and especially the separation between organisation.