UP551 Coke's Cole Palmer Problem: When the ambassador misses the party

On 22 April 2026, Coca-Cola unveiled Cole Palmer as its newest football brand ambassador, fronting Premier League and World Cup activations. A month later, Tuchel left him out of the England squad. We use the Palmer story as a way into a wider conversation with Ricardo Fort — former global head of sport at Coca-Cola, now advisor to brands betting billions on the World Cup — about how personal endorsement deals really work in 2026.

The anatomy of an endorsement deal. Ricardo breaks down the numbers: $3-8m per year for a top player, rarely a one-year deal, so you're looking at $10m minimum before activation. Add a global campaign on top and you're at $50-60m of media spend that depends on one player turning up.

Where the leverage sits. Spoiler: not with the brand. By the time the contract gets signed, the creative idea has been built around the player, the agency is in love with the film, and the agent knows it. Ricardo on why the awkward "what if you don't make the squad?" conversation rarely happens — and why contracts that should include triggers for injury, non-selection, and tournament performance often don't.

The slow-moving machine. A good World Cup campaign kicks off weeks after the previous one ends. By the time the squad is announced, 90% of the posts, the point-of-sale, the films and the photography are already in the can. Agility in this market is a myth.

The Formula 1 jumpsuit problem. When Vinicius Jr. is fronting campaigns for Visa, Marriott Bonvoy, Rexona, LEGO, Nike, Pepsi and Havaianas, who actually owns him? Ricardo on why most brands have no idea how many other sponsors have signed the same face, and why differentiation has become the real game.

Cultural relevance, examined. The phrase everyone in sports marketing reaches for. Ricardo on why it works for Adidas and Nike, why it's largely delusional for everyone else, and why most brands are still asking players to post twice on Instagram and calling it strategy.

Also covered. FIFA as a bulletproof brand. Why the ticketing land-grab doesn't damage it. Hospitality as a business. The 3am problems that keep sponsorship directors awake during a tournament — lost VIP guests, missing teenagers, last-minute Croatian billionaires arriving by private jet. And the medal-ceremony speech Ricardo describes as the lowest point of his career.

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Transcript

Ricardo Fort 0:00

For a top player it will run from, three to maybe seven, eight million per year. And this is rarely a one-year deal, so it'll be... talking about two years at least, so, it starts at 10 million

0:14

Hi, welcome to Unofficial Partners. Richard Gillis here. That was Riccardo Fort, former Global Head of Sport at Coca-Cola. Talking to him today because the Cole Palmer question. Let's call it that. In April Coca-Cola announced its newest football brand ambassador fronting Premier League and World Cup activations. A month later, less than a month later, Thomas Tuchel, the England manager, left him out of the England squad. He's not going to the World Cup. Cue schadenfreude, and a useful way into a bigger conversation. Hiring a footballer for your World Cup campaign is an exercise in managed risk. They might not get picked, they might get injured, or like Vinicius Junior, they might sponsor virtually everything else. So your multimillion-dollar idea ends up as just one more logo on a Formula 1-type jumpsuit. Riccardo now advises brands on this sort of stuff, talks about how these brands actually get built, where the leverage sits in the negotiation, and why most of the money is already spent by the time the squad sheet drops. Plus, we talk about cultural relevance, everyone's favorite World Cup cliché. Ticketing, should FIFA do it? Does it have any impact? Is the FIFA brand bulletproof? And the speech a sponsor should never give, all in the next 40 minutes or so.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 1:37

I wanna talk about Cole Palmer But purely just as a way in to talk about endorsements and what that means now in relation to major events in the World Cup, and. So it's about the World Cup, but really I wanna get into the sort of rabbit hole of what endorsements are now and, how it works and there's no one better to talk about it than you. So I'm gonna read this. This is the 22nd of April, 2026. Cole Palmer signs as Coca-Cola's football brand ambassador. This is Coca-Cola's own press release. The multi-year partnership will see dynamic ice cool player Palmer front Coca-Cola and Powerade activations across the Premier League and FIFA World Cup 2026. So The Coca-Cola Company welcomes England and Chelsea star Cole Palmer as its newest brand ambassador in a partnership that brings together one of the most exciting young talents with one of the world's most iconic brands. Now, that's a month ago, which is a long time in in football. He's not been selected for the England team, quite controversial in some people's view. And what now? So the g- the point you were making... Well, let's just frame your initial response to this 'cause you can see that where the conversation will go initially is there's a bit of, well, what happens? What's it like in the office the day the team gets announced? That sort of detail. Let's get into that bit first, your emotional response, and then we can talk about strategy stuff a little bit.

Ricardo Fort 3:06

Well, I think that in general, every brand that signs a player that is likely to play at the World Cup months before the World Cup expects the player to be playing. So frustration, of course. But I think that in most of these companies that understand how sports work, and, Coca-Cola is one of them, they-- there is no, pointing fingers anywhere because, this is this can happen. It's not the first time that they pick players and actually this World Cup is not the first time that they pick a player that is not going to the World Cup. I think Rodrigo got injured. He's also a Powerade ambassador and there's always a frustration, but at the end of the day that's football

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 3:50

so there's risk, obviously, and as you say history is littered with injured players who didn't get there, how do you mitigate against that? So when you're looking at a contract, what does it really mean? Let's talk about, we'll talk about the campaigns that maybe have been done already and are in the can, and

Ricardo Fort 4:09

Mm-hmm.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 4:09

sort of that bit of the wastage. But what do you-- when you sit down and say, "Right, okay, I'm in charge of Coke's marketing budget globally. I want Cole Palmer," and but what does-- what gets inserted into those contracts?

Ricardo Fort 4:25

So, if you're doing the contract well, you are, you're having discussions about the possibilities of what happens when he wins a lot or she wins a lot or something goes wrong. So you have triggers for, if you are the player of the tournament, if you are top scorer of the season, or if you got injured, if you don't play for a long period of time, or if you're not called up for the World Cup. So all of that are things that a good contract should should consider. Said that, it's not an easy conversation because to go to a famous player that expects to be playing and tell him, "So what if?" is a very difficult conversation, and a lot of brands don't do it because it's so obvious that or she will go to the World Cup that many of them, avoid the conversation, and then they find themselves in, in a situation that they didn't expect to be

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 5:20

So that's interesting. So avoiding that which talks to a sort of where the power lies in a conversation like that, because my assumption would be it would be on the brand side, on the Coke side, on the, the big multinational conglomerate who have all the money. But what we're saying really is that the player has enormous power at that moment. There is a moment running into a major tournament where the player and the agent is leveraging that moment. And so landing the idea that Cole Palmer couldn't-- might not get selected when you're having the conversation in March, April this year, how does that-- just talk me through that, 'cause that means that actually there's a lever there that Coke are gonna have to overpay for this, or they're gonna have to then extend into this conversation in a way they don't want to.

Ricardo Fort 6:08

Yeah, there's enormous power on the side of the player if you're doing this late. A lot of these contracts, they happen, a year or more before the big events. And you have to take into account that some of the players are not being hired just for the World Cup. Now it's a bummer that they're not going, but I mean, if you're getting a player that is playing for, a top league like the Premier League or La Liga, you're going to be with him for, for a long time. So it's not like a contract for a few months. So there are a lot of benefits for the contract and, but the World Cup is a problem. But the players have a lot of leverage, and the reason why they have a lot of leverage is because the way it happens is usually the decision to hire a player comes after a creative idea has been developed by an advertising agency. So there's an idea that works for that player, and you cannot replace the player, and everybody loves the idea, and you want to do that film, and you start budgeting the film, and you start working towards getting the film done, and the film depends on that player. So when you go to talk to the nate- an agent, you you pay whatever they demand. So it's a, it is a difficult conversation because if you do it late, if you're doing just for that event, then you're-- I don't think that's the case for Coke, but in general, agents have a lot of leverage

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 7:27

So the we'll move off Cole Palmer in a minute, but they're just a... 'Cause he's just quite a useful proxy for this. Because you've got two things happening at the same time. You've got that, the commercial negotiation. What's it worth? How much am I going to pay for this piece of talent now at this moment? So that's the question. And you've also got the sort of knowledge on the agent side that pre-work has been done. So you're sort of going into a negotiation. I can see a difference between, Cole Palmer, the Premier League campaign, but Cole Palmer, the World Cup campaign. So let's just sort of work through that because obviously in the release, and it's interesting it was released only in April, but to your point, I'm su- I don't know how far we go back, a year when they're thinking about Cole Palmer when he was really hot this time last year, and he was the sort of player, standout player. So we then get through that process. So how... Let's talk about the cost. There's the cost of the deal. What would you put that at? What would you guess that number to be?

Ricardo Fort 8:38

For a top player um, it will run from, three to maybe seven, eight million per year. And this is rarely a one-year deal, so it'll be... talking about two years at least, so, it starts at 10 million

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 8:53

Yeah. Okay. And then the additional, the ac- what we might call the activation cost that is now sort of lost. And I can see a scenario where an a- a clever agency will say, "No, hang on. Let's save that film. We can cut it in a different way. We can make a clever sort of use of this." But essentially, what's the cost of that activation around an individual player?

Ricardo Fort 9:17

Well, it really depends for the brand and how much media they're putting behind it, the, how how much they rely on that specific player. So it can be, 50, 60 million if you're running a global campaign. But the thing Richard, is that a lot of the work by the time, the coach the players is already done. So the film has been launched the advertising is running, the, the posters at the point of sale at the supermarkets is, are, have already been placed. So, the waste is not as high as most people would think because a lot of the benefits that they are accruing from the campaign is already, in their books. it is just odd. It's like a Panini album when you get a Brazil national team without Neymar, and Neymar is called. So it's the opposite problem. So, it's just a wrong forecast. But the albums have been sold, the stickers have been sold. So yeah, it's a, it's not ideal, but

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 10:15

So it's a slow process. Quite often, in mar- in the marketing press, they talk about agility and move fast, fail fast, all of these great, ideas. But really, we're talking about a slow-moving sort of engineering operation, aren't we? It's, as you say it's sort of point of sale material, which is the less sexy end of the sports sponsorship market, but you might argue is every bit as important as a TV s- ad spot

Ricardo Fort 10:41

Yeah, one thing for sure is, the bigger the company, the slower they move. I mean, there is no agility whatsoever. My f- my friends and sponsors, they have been preparing their campaign for the last three years, there are, hundreds if not thousands of people in each of the companies involved. They have done workshops in Asia. They have done workshops in Europe, in North America, in Latin America to sell an idea. And then when everybody buys into the idea, they go out and they start, talking to, to, to the agency and selecting the players. And so this is a very slow process that keeps them busy for, sometimes four years. A good World Cup campaign kicks off, weeks after the f- the previous World Cup has ended, so there is no agility whatsoever. And that adds up to the frustration when something goes wrong. But a lot of the work has already been deployed by the time we are now weeks from the kickoff

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 11:38

Yeah. And the-- I'm very aware this is a UK-centric conversation, so we're talking about Cole Palmer, we're talking about the England team, we're talking about... In my mind, I'm talking about the UK market. Your old job as global head of sport at Coca-Cola, you're look- UK is just one market in all of them. So How do you manage that across the portfolio? Is it the same? Are you picking players? Are there Cole Palmers in every marketplace, or are they just sort of picking a small, very select group of elite players and saying, "Okay, there, that's our guy in Germany, that's our guy in Brazil, that's our guy in Italy"? How does it work?

Ricardo Fort 12:20

It is a combination of things. So, big markets for the business, they always have a, a over-representation. So is a very large market for m-most companies. It is no question for for Coke. So in any global campaign, that would be an English player because, England and the UK in general is so big for the business that it makes sense. Then you go to a couple of other big countries, and you may select players. So Brazil is a big market and, in Europe you got, Spain is a big market. So you, you select based on the needs of the business, and you try to get people that are reasonable reasonably global to, to be able to go to the, marketing manager in the Philippines and to tell him or her, "Hey, this is a great global piece of advertising that works for you because, everybody loves Coke," or don't we all? And there you go. Then it's a global campaign

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 13:14

So there, the idea of-- personal endorsement sponsorship as opposed to... I mean, I always associate, and probably wrong, it's interesting the personal endorsement thing 'cause my head always goes to Pepsi and Nike, and Adidas and Coke I always put in the event official box. And we had this conversation in the past about the role of ambassadors and endorsers as ambush material or trying to build a story when you haven't got the official rights. But what we're saying here is that Coca-Cola is an enormous spender on official rights, but it also sees the value in having a cold parma in every marketplace. So just talk to me about that 'cause I was-- it's not a binary either/or decision. What's the relationship between the official I've paid for to be the official partner of the World Cup or FIFA partner, whatever the iteration of it is, but I'm also spending in the athlete marketplace? So what does that talk to about the, what you're buying from the-- and I think there's a question at the end of this about the value of official partnership actually, but let's get to that in a minute.

Ricardo Fort 14:21

Mm-hmm. Yeah no, you're right about historically there's an idea of of Coke, Adidas on one side, Pepsi, Nike on the other side, and one is about the collective, the official, the, the event, and the other one is the players. But, I mean, that, that's a-- that's more of a perception than reality. But I mean, all the companies are spending a lot on players. And the last years, as the role of celebrities and individuals have grown so much because of, all the, social media possibilities it became even more important for the companies to have players talking on their behalf. There, there is no interesting football story without, authenticity, and authenticity comes from players. So you have to have players, you have to have athletes during the Olympics. You have-- So all these companies are investing a lot. So if you look around all the campaigns that are running now for, all official and not so official brands for the World Cup I'll say that of them have players because that's the language that most people expect from

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 15:21

Yeah. So Vini Jr., and you get to the question of how many sponsors one player can carry, and when you're sitting in Coke's seat, how that plays with the value and the return on investment that, and what are you looking for? So is it actually... again, a sort of pri- a peripheral view of this would be, okay, they're looking for some association. But just talk to me about whether that's still relevant now. What the-- Because you've got these players who are just representing 10 major companies, how you cut through. So it's a almost a mini competition within a Vini Jr., Who owns Vini Jr. in the World Cup is a competition compared as well as who's gonna win the sponsorship race in and around the World Cup itself. Just to talk to me about the value of players at that level, 'cause it feels to me, again, a superficial reading would be actually it's declining, not increasing.

Ricardo Fort 16:17

Mm-hmm. Well, I think first you have to acknowledge that there are maybe five players in the world that carry that many sponsors. And these are all premium brands that have a lot of money to spend in, in advertising. So it is a competition among these sponsors. The challenge is that most of these brands, they have no idea how many other brands are signing them up they sign their own deal. So they realize at some point that, every commercial break there are five different brands using Neymar or every commercial break there's... and that's not great. In, in the previous World Cup, I wrote something about Neymar in Brazil because he was selling everything. There were maybe 14, 15 sponsors and, good for him, but not so great for all these 14 brands that now I have no idea if there's-- he's selling an apartment or my beverage or, a digital coin.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 17:14

I mean, it is a very old sort of relic of marketing, isn't it? The personal endorsement, sponsorship. And I was wo- I wanted to ask you how you see it when we take it from the frame of brand control, slow-moving, point of sale, famous face popping in a media environment, which is very about channels and control and rights. And then you take that picture and throw it into today's media environment where, you know, running into the World Cup, there'll be people talking about cultural entry points. We'll be talking about Timothy Chalamet and Adidas and films and cultural relevance, and all of these sort of buzzwords that get thrown about at this time of the year in the run into a tournament. How the endorse-- You know, whether it's actually-- Whether you started again from a clean sh-slate, you would say, "Right, okay, let's do what we've always done," 'cause there's a sort of security blanket. The CFO will like this 'cause there's a sort of proven return model here. Rather than the more exciting stuff which is less tested, less tried in terms of less reliable. T-talk me-- Let's just try and take the personal endorsement and throw it into today's media environment.

Ricardo Fort 18:34

So fir-- not every sponsor is sophisticated, as sophisticated as Adidas. So they can go into culture and they can tell stories and they can spend a gazillion dollars to to produce something as, as good as they did. But most companies, no. I mean, most companies are going to players and asking them to post a couple of times on Instagram and, doing a photo shoot in, in, in an hour somewhere near their training grounds and that's about it. And I think that's the level of of football marketing for most brands. A brand that will work, two years in advance to get the players and to be able to film at the right time and to, get content at the right time and produce and distribute and plan. I mean, if you take all the big sponsors now, all their postings during the World Cup, I mean, they have ninety percent already written and photographed and everything is done waiting for the moment to click. But most brands don't. Most brands are just hoping to get an image from somewhere and during the World Cup and tell a story that they don't know yet about it. So, yeah, CFOs will approve safer campaigns and marketings, most of them, they only know how to do safer campaigns. so that's where brands like Adidas or Coke, they will differentiate themselves because they just plan better, produce better, distribute better

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 19:55

Let's talk about the phrase cultural relevance, because you can imagine how many times it gets mentioned on a podcast like this. People come on and talk about it, and they-- it's just a-- It's sort of interesting over the last couple of years, it's just dropped into industry conversation as though it just suddenly happened. I think there's a sort of silliness. There's a... When you stand back from it a bit, I think there's probably-- we talk about Adidas and Nike all the time, but the sort of those type of brands I can sort of get there. I can see that you can build a story about, okay, they're culturally relevant. But when you then get to sort of big conglomerates, in other categories that are not of footwear, trainer, apparel brands, it starts to fall down quite rapidly. I mean, I don't think culture works in the way that the marketing industry wants it to work. I think it's sort of, just showing up and posting things about music and film and, relate, trying to relate it to the World Cup. I think it's sort of quite transparent. I just, I think it's a real issue. What do you think about the phrase cultural relevance?

Ricardo Fort 21:01

Well, it's fancy to use cultural relevance as a goal. You have to define what cultural relevance is. I mean, for me, it's just being part of the conversation that is happening around something meaningful in the world. So sometimes you are part of the conversation not for the good reasons. And you were very relevant in that moment when Ronaldo took that Coca-Cola from the press conference. That was culture relevant, and Coke was involved in it. Did they want to be part of this conversation? Certainly not. But then it happened. But I think that some brands they have the status of being part of conversations, and Nike certainly does, Adidas certainly does, Coca-Cola certainly does, but it's not for every brand. I remember a CEO of a company that I worked for he came to my boss and me one day and said, "I want people to love our brand so much they wear our shirts with our brand on it." And I thought, "I need to look for a new job." this is not going to work. Not every brand can be on a T-shirt. So yeah, cultural relevance is for most brands an unachievable goal

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 22:05

playing in adjacent areas is, again, another theme and is now there. And we talk, again, the Adidas film with Chamile and, and Jude Bellingham, and it's sort of New York, Hollywood, but it's also bringing music, Bad Bunny. You're sort of-- You can start to see a strategy deck with concentric circles, and I think it's quite interesting how far you can get if you don't... if you're not talking about football, and then you get to the question of, "Well, what are we talking about?" What relevance is this to the World Cup? So there's a sort of quite interesting line where you start to say, "Okay, we could talk about cooking or baking or,

Ricardo Fort 22:46

Yeah.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 22:47

dance or, whatever, gardening. As long as Ronaldo's doing it, we can still get there." But what's the point? There's a sort of... It's quite an interesting time we're at

Ricardo Fort 22:58

Mm-hmm. True. I mean, but listen the the World Cup is not a football event. It happens to have some football, but it's brands use the World Cup for a lot more than football. And so I think all of that the baking, the fashion the airlines, everything works for the World Cup, at the World Cup. It, it wouldn't work for everyday football because in everyday football, people care most about football. They're not paying a lot of attention to the party around football. So the World Cup is treated for the sponsors in the same way like a Super Bowl is a, it's a global-globally relevant in the case of the World Cup event that a lot of people that don't care about football get involved with for different reasons. So we talk to everyone. So, for a company that talks to families, to kids, to adults they use it to-- with different messaging for different audiences. And it works really well because, not necessarily a football fan will be sitting in front of the TV eating a Lay's and drinking a Coke and, listen to their Dream Phones, all the things that are promoted during the World Cup

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 24:03

Yeah. The, it's quite interesting watching FIFA in America, isn't it? And you must have sort of looked at this and I, I asked the question the other day on a, in a different context about their ticketing sort of strategy and owning the secondary ticketing market and that story. And I wondered what the impact of the FIFA brand is of that because they've sort of... No one loves ticketing. StubHub, Ticketmaster, these aren't loved brands, but they are functional brand. They're part of the machinery of buying in the ticket. Now, FIFA's move into becoming StubHub essentially or becoming Ticketmaster, I can see that there's a commercial upside of owning the money or getting more money. But what do you think about, is there an argument to say actually it's not a place they should be playing because they're monetizing the brand via Coca-Cola and Unilever and, all these other major sponsors? At some point, do you think that the im- there is an impact? Or do you think it's just the World Cup, you're gonna make that separation argument that it's not about FIFA, it's about the World Cup and football?

Ricardo Fort 25:13

Yeah, I think the latter. I think that it's a big line of business for every event, the decision for me is very simple. Should I let anyone else profit from that, or should I capture the profits myself? I think that the reputation the potential reputation problems that can come up from pricing is not as serious as everyday ticketing because, everyday ticketing is hitting you every weekend that you want to do something special. And the World Cup is is recognized as s-something unique that happens once in my country, and I'll be paying more anyway no matter who's selling the ticket because this is special. So I think, at the end of the day, people criticize FIFA for what they are doing, but it's just-- I think it's business of sport, and they w- they decided to capture the revenues themselves, and I think it's the right decision

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 26:04

FIFA brand is interesting. So you think it's sort of bulletproof almost. They can-- that it's always priced in, there's a separation between FIFA and football in that sense, and that brands are telling themselves that it doesn't matter what Infantino does, what he does, where he turns up in a red hat. Whatever he's doing, that's a sideshow to the football, and that's just, that is priced into the ticket. That's what we're saying, I suppose. It's just a bulletproof brand from a marketing perspective

Ricardo Fort 26:32

Yes, FIFA is a bulletproof the FIFA World Cup is a bulletproof brand. And, you know, we, we... You a lot of people criticize FIFA today, but if you look FIFA, 10, 15 years ago, there were a lot more reasons to criticize them, and no sponsor canceled their contract. No sponsor did anything. Even in the peak of the FIFA crisis, they were all there because everybody knows that of the association, they outscore by a large margin, whatever is happening in the administration side. So I think the problems of today are, are small compared to the problems of 15 years ago. And certainly sponsors look at it and stay, and they sign and they pay because they... I think they think the same way. It is one of the, least talked about things about the FIFA the FIFA World Cup the power of the brand

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 27:22

It's interesting, isn't it? there's a world, there's a parallel world. I always think that being in charge of the most popular game in the world, you would be a popular organizer. You know, there is a sort of... It could be a UNICEF-type brand. There's a, there is another world where this, there is a different version of sports governing bodies

Ricardo Fort 27:39

Yeah. Yeah, this is where we disagree. I think that, anything that a lot of people care about, there'll be a lot of opinions and there'll be a lot of disagreements and everybody think they have better solution for whatever they are doing. So it is a controversial by nature because people love football and they think they can do that job better than anybody that is there. It's like being a coach, right? many people love a coach? If he didn't win the last-- the previous game, then we hate him. So yeah

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 28:10

yeah, where you then get to... I'm just I was trying to think what, why, we're going back to the start, why the Cole Palmer story, people enjoy a story like that, and I think it's to do with our relationship with big business, and I think it, there's a schadenfreude about major brand, major conglomerates like Coca-Cola and FIFA and these things that are sort of now other, and they are in the 1% in our minds. I think the enjoyment that we get from the Cole Palmer Co- story is r- something to do with that. I think it's to do with, look at that massive rich company making a mistake. Can you see that?

Ricardo Fort 28:58

I think, yeah, I don't know, Richard, 'cause, most people are sad because the player they want to see playing is not going to be there. And I think we cannot lose perspective of this is what real people are thinking about today and th-this is what really matters. and I think I have a better solution for my national team and, the coach is an idiot and... So this is the relationship that the vast majority of the people have with what's happening right now. the two of us and, the, the other people that do things similar to, work in sports, of them may have this, but if they've been around for a little bit, they would know that this kind of things, they would happen and you may have a laugh because, yeah, they got it wrong. But most people would think, "Well, this, these guys are funding all the fun that we have in football, so they better be happy with what's going on because otherwise there is no money to, to pay for the, for everything that, that football means to us." So yeah, I think there might be some people that e-enjoy seeing the failure of big company, big organizations. But yeah, it's a tiny portion of everybody that is sad because Cole Palmer is not playing next month

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 30:10

So you think that fans should praise sponsors for funding sport, and you think that's the sort of... We view, fans view sponsors like Coca-Cola as the good guys who are in a, the old patronage idea of sponsoring something, going back to sort of Renaissance Italy. There is a sponsor, and we are providing the money. You think that's what sponsors look like?

Ricardo Fort 30:39

No, I do not think that. I think that the fans could not care less about who the sponsors are the sponsors do something that makes sense and it's meaningful, it's interesting for them. And that can be creating content, stories that are good to watch, good to read about giving them things that make their football consumption, if you say, so, better. So unless the sponsors are doing something for the fan, could not care less about who the sponsors are, and that's why very few people can name them

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 31:11

Yeah. Yeah, no, I think that's true. And there's also that the media money is so large that the sponsor income is a sort of cherry on the cake now. It used to... I can see the argument used to, I'm old enough to remember that people might give credit for a shirt sponsor or a, or an event sponsor, and it happens at the lower end when the market is very different. But at the top end, that story's gone away, isn't it? You can't go in. I think the idea of official partnership is a really funny one, actually. I think it's a sort of... The idea that there is some relationship that we're supposed to hold up in some way

Ricardo Fort 31:46

yeah. Well, it's certainly... I mean, I think that most I think most sponsors, they expect fans to love them because they're a sponsor, which is totally delusional, but not the point. It's about what you do with your sponsorship, and a sponsorship just a license to spend more money telling stories and giving access that other brands may not be able to do

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 32:08

I like, my favorite bit of a sort of tennis event or a sports event is when the sponsor makes a speech at the uh, at the medal giving ceremony. Do you know what I mean? I just think it's absolutely sensational misreading of events and public opinion. Have you ever had to do that? Have you ever had to, have Do you ever stand up and say, "Right, I, okay, the man from Coke's here, the man from Visa's here"?

Ricardo Fort 32:34

I unfortunately, and yes I did that, yes. And it's one of the I would say it was the lowest point in my career. Nobody wanted to see me there

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 32:44

But some of them go on for about 20 minutes, don't they? They, they're talking about

Ricardo Fort 32:48

go forever. No, but i- if you add a speech on top of just the medal ceremony, then it gets, it, it's a nightmare. You should never do this. Don't ever get this right. Or if you want to get your boss fired or get yourself fired, sign up for that

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 33:01

Well, it's like mu- I always think it's like music at a sports event. it's just not wanted by 90% of the people in the audi- I mean, there might be a few people who, also like fireworks and balloons. But I think it's the halftime Super Bowl esque show I think is just such a mistake. It's just such a misreading of, again, we can talk about cultural relevance. Foot- it's like they've never talked to a football fan. But I, and to your point, it's actually not aimed at football fans, presumably

Ricardo Fort 33:29

The, yeah, but, th-there's, there is a point in the activation of football that what you do can be damaging for your brand, and I think music is one of those things. Music works very well for the Super Bowl because American culture of how they consume the Super Bowl is different. every year I write something about, I ha- I know people at PepsiCo, they do a lot of good work, but please don't do a concert before the s- Champions League final. It is not good. Nobody wants to see anyone singing before that. but yeah, we are about to see another one, that doesn't work. That ne- has never worked and will never work because nobody that is in the stadium wants to see that. At the World Cup, we have a little bit more leg room because, just because it is the World Cup and people are there for the celebration. And by the way, a lot of, most of the people that are in the stadium at the final, they are not super football fans because that's a, an environment that has it's-- The access is so limited that you get a lot of corporate guests and you get a lot of, celebrities and... So yeah, they like music and that works for them at the World Cup final, but not in a everyday football

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 34:43

How many tickets would a sort of top-line FIFA partner get to the final?

Ricardo Fort 34:49

Uh, A lot of the tickets they get is right to purchase. But it's, if you-- I think if you put all the sponsors together they would not get m- maybe a couple hundred, yeah per sponsor. a lot, and most of them they don't use all the tickets. It's a right to purchase and you usually have to make decisions of purchasing the tickets before you know the match schedule. So you're making decisions on match 32 that will be played in Kansas City on that day at that time, and you have no idea, so you buy a little bit for each of them and just hope that, the ones that you bet will be, Argentina playing or England playing. But it's a really difficult math. And then you try to, you trade with other sponsors, so if, if you have a sponsor that is more interested in, in, in the English game and somebody else is interested in the American, the US game, so you trade tickets with them and FIFA help with that. But, planning ticketing is a nightmare because you don't have that many, and the ones that you have, you're purchasing before you know who's playing

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 35:54

And what is the really horrible bit of the job at that point? Is it the CEO ringing you up and saying, "Ricardo, a very important friend of mine needs to be at the World Cup final, and you haven't got a ticket"? Is that... Does that ever... Is that a scenario? What are the really, the calls that you dread in that week running into the World Cup final?

Ricardo Fort 36:14

Well, s- surprising, Richard is the opposite, is I have too many tickets, I don't know what to do with them. I bet on the wrong match because for the senior people at the company, you always have tickets in your pocket for them because they are going to ask. So if you used all your tickets, shame on you. You

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 36:33

And

Ricardo Fort 36:34

this.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 36:35

then Croatia get through to the final and no one wants to go

Ricardo Fort 36:39

Well, I've been in, in events where there were very important people from Croatia that decided to fly to the World Cup on their private jets the day before the match, and I had to find tickets. And you do find it. I mean, if you-- if you call FIFA and you say, "I don't have tickets for this game, it's a big game, but I have, five guests that must be there," they will help you. But you shouldn't... you cannot do this every game, right? So then it's a problem that's of ticket management for you

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 37:04

Yeah. That's good. So that's the scary bit. I like... I think a really good sort of guest question is what's the 3:00 in the morning problem during the World Cup? What do you... You wake up and Ricardo's sweating, lying there staring at the ceiling. What's the question on your head, in your mind?

Ricardo Fort 37:23

There, there are a couple of them. I think that a ticket is usually a problem. There is hospitality guest behavior.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 37:32

Yes

Ricardo Fort 37:33

we lost a guest. His I haven't seen him for or her for two days. a problem. Especially when you have few brands are doing programs with kids today, but or teenagers. But, I've done progra-programs that the biggest challenge is to track the teens so that they don't run away. So don't lose your guests. I think that's a big problem. Accidents in general with staff, the team. So there's a lot of things that keep the, my friends at the sponsors stressed all the way through last guest departs from the, from the host the final host city

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 38:07

Yeah. Do you miss it? Do you miss that? I- is it exciting during the event?

Ricardo Fort 38:13

Oh, so I don't because now I have all the fun of being involved with it, but I don't have the responsibility making it work.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 38:20

Yeah.

Ricardo Fort 38:20

yeah

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 38:22

Yeah. No, it's fascinating, isn't it? It's a real sort of entry into the world. I always thought there was a good book to be written about going a season in hospitality. So you go around e- a sports event every week, every month, and then it's almost like, we've-- people have written books about the fan experience and what it's like. But actually, I think the view from the hospitality box, it's quite a niche book, but I think it would be quite interesting 'cause it sort of tells a whole story of a culture that exists,

Ricardo Fort 38:51

One

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 38:54

project onto it a lot. So when there's an empty seat in a stadium, the commentator always says the sponsors are the problem. Look at all these empty seats at Wembley. The sponsors are still feeding themselves.

Ricardo Fort 39:07

No, rarely sponsor's fault. And you're right. There are people today... I mean, it's a topic for another day, but sports tourism exploded. So there are people doing exactly what you're describing. They're going event to event in very expensive hospitality packages, and they have their calendar of trips planned around, Wimbledon and, and the Premier League and rugby and cricket, and they just go around watching great events. So yeah, hospitality is a great business. But for the companies, yeah, it's a, is a piece of work that is very stressful

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 39:40

It's also quite interesting what it does to, the atmosphere or the environment. I was looking at watching the world-- the Ryder Cup, and the Ryder Cup the crowd turned nasty, the American crowd turned nasty, and normally that's about sort of football fans, drunk football fans tearing up ci- city centers. This was about rich, very entitled people turning ugly, and it was a different thing. But I imagine that within that group, that sort of social class of people who are doing the hospitality run, the grand tour of major events around the world, the sense of entitlement is off the scale. If you're... I think if you're arriving in a helicopter, it's, it, it's never a good sign

Ricardo Fort 40:20

Yeah, but no, but you have to make a distinction here because these are not sponsors' guests. These are people that bought hospitality packages, and they spend maybe, fifteen thousand dollars on a package, and they feel they can do anything. If you're invited by a company, it's usually you're being hosted by an executive and, you don't misbehave. You rarely misbehave because, there's a business relationship, and it's not like you're taking your friends. You're taking, important relationships and, customers and, influential people in the government, whatever it is. So, these are not the, these are not the people that are shouting and misbehaving. The ones that buy the packages are usually the ones that think they can do anything

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 41:01

The problem with that though is someone like me. So I get invited at late notice to a surprisingly large number of sports events because someone higher up in the food chain has said no, or several people higher up, so the aspiration has been, we need the CEO of the bottling firm in, you know, southern England, and it's gone down the chain. No one fan... These are never prestige sports events, by the way. And it gets to someone like me, and I am... My relationship with the sponsor is nonexistent. So I think there's a sort of problem with that. There's a food chain issue, and I think I'm at the bottom end of the sort of middle class of sport. I think, okay, if the ticket gets to me, then I've got liberty to, do whatever I like, 'cause I've got no constraints

Ricardo Fort 41:52

No I don't think, I don't think you're at bottom of it. I mean, if you're, if you have been invited, you're not at the bottom of it. It's

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 42:00

So there's someone below me. So if I say no, there's someone else, there's someone lower than me

Ricardo Fort 42:05

Richard, there is always someone below you that would love to have the ticket that you're getting

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 42:11

Fantastic. Are you going to the World Cup at all?

Ricardo Fort 42:13

Yes. Yes, I'm going. I'm going to be, the first--

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 42:17

You're gonna be in hospitality for Ricardo, let's face it. You're gonna be, you're gonna be in one of the looking You're gonna have a glass of wine. You're not gonna be in the cheap seats

Ricardo Fort 42:27

Well, I, if I tell you that I don't have any tickets yet, would you believe it? I'm hoping that I'm using your platform, Richard, to ask people to invite me because I

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 42:39

Yeah, but you're- you know where the last minute tickets are. So you've got, you're a sort of, you've got a sense for the marketplace, an animal sense

Ricardo Fort 42:47

but I depend on people like you saying no so that I can get the next ticket, Richard.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 42:52

Yeah, Okay.

Ricardo Fort 42:52

yeah.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 42:52

Yeah. All right. I'll let you off that one. Brilliant, Ricardo.

Ricardo Fort 42:55

Will be

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner 42:56

Fantastic. Have a great summer. Thanks for coming on. Really enjoyed that

Ricardo Fort 42:59

Thanks, Richard. Cheers