FIFA is so intent on providing sponsors an environment free of competitive signs that even the names of four stadiums with corporate naming rights have been asked to be covered up during the Women's World Cup.
On their recent tour of the six venues to be used for the Sept. 20-Oct. 12 event, FIFA officials went through each facility pointing out every corporate sign and banner that they wanted covered for the event.
With less than four months to prepare for the event, compared with four years of preparation for the 1999 Women's World Cup, a FIFA marketing spokesman acknowledged that some signs pointed out during the venue tours may not get covered.
"We all live in a real world and know that there are certain facts and conditions that we have to live with," said FIFA marketing spokesman Regula Bleuler, in an e-mailed response. "On the other hand we are obliged to protect the rights of our Official Partners/Suppliers as much as possible. Our philosophy is to combine both by using common sense."
Hundreds, if not thousands, of signs were asked to be covered, including the neon-lit corporate names of PGE, Home Depot, Lincoln Financial and Gillette, which adorn the outsides of four of the six World Cup sites, said Jim Moorhouse, a spokesman for U.S. Soccer, the World Cup's local organizing group.
Even though FIFA is planning to cover the names of its World Cup venues, the venues will still be identified with their corporate names in press releases, in other World Cup marketing materials and on television. For their stadiums to be World Cup venues, officials at the four stadiums plus RFK Stadium and Columbus Crew Stadium had to agree to comply with FIFAsignage rules for the event.
The only corporate signs in World Cup venues will be around the field and those of official event partners: Adidas, Avaya, Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Deutsche Telekom, Emirates, FujiFilm, Hyundai, MasterCard, McDonald's, Philips, Toshiba and Yahoo!.
Mark Schuster, president of Metropolitan Sports, which runs Portland's PGE Park, said the fact that the six venues were able to meet FIFA's requirements in such a short time frame was amazing.
"I was concerned," Schuster said. "There were a lot of things we had to overcome with regard to the bid. The most serious was approaching our 20 category-exclusive sponsors." In the end, Schuster said, he received "little to no negative feedback" from sponsors, mainly because hosting the World Cup is "such a huge event for Portland."
Some venues had clauses in their sponsor contracts regarding special events, such as the World Cup or Olympic events, which made negotiations easier. Other venues that had been under consideration, such as Seattle Seahawks Stadium, could not reach an agreement with their sponsors in time to meet FIFA's deadline, officials close to the discussions said.
Bleuler was unable to say how much it will cost to cover the signs.
