It looks like the move of Wesley Sneijder from Inter Milan to Manchester United is becoming inevitable, even his sponsors Nike (who also sponsor Inter and United) think so! 

In a move that looks a tad premature and has still not been adjusted by the sponsor even though it has go0ing arounbd the internet for a day or so now.  The problem for them is that they have altered the SEO on their website, so now if you search ‘Nike football Wesley Sneijder’ it comes up with links to their website and info stating that “Wesley Sneijder plays for Man Utd and wears the Nike T90 Laser III.”

It does hark back to the England Rugby Grand Slam video which was leaked on YouTube before the final England game this year in which they lost to Ireland and didnt achieve their ultimate goal.  I’m sure that officials in Milan will be fuming if this reaches their ears, though judging by the papers today it looks like a done deal that will be confirmed in the next 48 hours.

Its not been a good week for the sports giant.  This comes on top of them being targeted in a Greenpeace campaign and reaching the front page of The Metro this morning under the headline “Nike staff: We cant stop bosses beating us”.  Their PR team will be in overdrive in the coming days it seems.

As an Man Utd fan I can only keep my fingers crossed that Nike are right on this one and he joins Young, Jones and De Gea in the United line up next month.

Here is a screengrab of the results…

The recent Tiger Woods crisis showed the world how brands and athletes are tightly linked. While Accenture, Gatorade, AT&T dropped the golfer, other brands such as Gillette and Procter and Gamble, have significantly dimmed down their use of Tiger in advertising campaigns. EA Sports played differently as  Tiger shared his PGA Tour 2011 video game cover for the first time in 13 years. On the other hand, Nike stood by his athlete and aired an interesting, yet controversial advertsing campaign.

Athletes are the icons of sports brands. The Tiger Woods case showed  us that it can be a double edged sword.  I reckon the most famous football marketing icons would be David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane & Lionel Messi  among others for adidas, Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney & Didier Drogba (among others) for Nike. Eto’o being the Puma icon for some years now. 

It’s not an easy task to link a player to a brand. It is a long way process. Brands have a very well thought scouting system, and know talented young players before they get under mediatic spotlights. Sponsorship deals are being made, with parents agreement, and the kid grows up with the brand throughout his career. For those who saw the U-19 final where France deafeated Spain 2-1, all these youngsters were (already) wearing either adidas, Nike or Puma footwear. Obviously, these brands did not come up yesterday to add these players to their portfolio.

Gael Kakuta, the Chelsea player, Alexandre Lacazette the Olympique Lyonnais striker and Cédric Bakambu are the perfect examples. Three upcoming french stars, the first one wears the Superfly Vapour II, the OL player strikes with the adidas adizero F50 and Bakambu scored 2 goals against The Netherlands with his Pumas.

The “big three” are in constant look for the next Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. Once players are contracted by either one the three (adidas, Nike, Puma) it is difficult for the other two to step in. In other words, I don’t see Nike approaching Xavi nor adidas willing to sign Didier Drogba. Not only the Spaniard and the Ivory Coast player are already strongly “stamped” by their current sponsor but it will be a very costly deal if it gets through. Secondly I would like to think that the sponsors would rather invest in signing new young players with this amount of cash.

Brands link their image (and vice versa) to footballers from a very early age and this is a long term investment which will pay off when these talented players will lift a World Cup or Champions League trophy. In the meantime, they would have encapsulated their sponsors brand image and values. They would have represented the brand throughout their career. For instance, Zidane & Beckham will always be associated with the adidas brand and ultimately with the Predator boot. Recently, we have seen Nike’s effort to market Cristiano Ronaldo with the Mercurial Vapor Superfly II and Rooney with the T90 Laser III.

Happy to hear your thoughts!

Tomorrow’s Champions League Final between Inter Milan and Bayern Munich will see the Television debut of the Nike’s new epic football commercial.  Not only will TV viewers love it but it is set to become another viral phenomenon as it gets tweeted and imbedded in blogs like this around the world.

The ‘write the future’ ad shows how footballers such as Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo and Didier Drogba have the ability to change their destinies with one pass on the looming World Cup stage.

Directed by renowned Hollywood artisan Alejandro G. Iñarritu (21 Grams, Babel), the ad features guest appearances by Roger Federer, Kobe Bryant and, in a moment of sheer comic genius, Homer Simpson (is hillarious and worth waiting for).  Seeing a bearded Rooney living in a caravan is a great touch as well.  Hats off to Nike for this one.

I’m sure you will love it as well and is well worth a few minutes of your Friday afternoon…….. enjoy!

Write The Future from Nalden on Vimeo.

Last week Karl Lusbec wrote about the 20 Best Known European Football Brands. The article referenced a Sport+Markt 2009-2010 study of brand recognition among football fans in the top five markets (UK, Germany, Spain, France & Italy).  You can read the report yourself here.

I thought it might be interesting to look at this data and try to extrapolate from it which club brands were the most powerful.  Unscientific of course, but I wanted to see to what degree being aligned with a specific club (or clubs) is a factor, in addition to sponsoring tournaments like the FIFA World Cup, UEFA Champions League or UEFA European Championships.  So, let’s take a look.  Here’s the 2009 Delloitte & Touche Money League of clubs* along with the brands listed in the Sport+Markt survey (and the brands ranking in that survey) associated with them:

1. Real Madrid – adidas (1), Coca-Cola (5), Audi (8), bwin (9)

2. Manchester United – Nike (2), AIG (6), Audi (8),

3. FC Barcelona – Nike (2), Audi (8), Unicef (15)

4. Bayern Munich – adidas (1), Coca-Cola (5), Audi (8)

5. Chelsea – adidas (1), Samsung (10), Heineken (20)

6. Arsenal – Nike (2), Emirates (5)

7. Liverpool – adidas (1), Carlsberg (7)

8. AC Milan – adidas (1), bwin (9)

9. AS Roma -

10. Inter Milan – Nike (2)

11. Juventus – Nike (2)

12. Olympique Lyonnais – Umbro (16), Orange (18)

13. Schalke 04 – adidas (1)

14. Tottenham Hotspur – Puma (3), Carlsberg (7)

15. Hamburger SV – adidas (1), Emirates (5)

16. Olympique Marseille – adidas (1), Orange (18)

17. Newcastle United – adidas (1)

18. VfB Stuttgart – Puma (3), Coca-Cola (4)

19. Fenerbahce – adidas (1), Audi (8)

20. Manchester City – Umbro (16)

*I looked for the list of official club sponsors on official team websites as of February 2010.

Who from the Sport+Markt list weren’t represented by a club from the Delloitte & Touche Money League clubs?

11. Reebok

12. Opel (Read this Sport Business story from 2001 calling them the ‘most successful shirt sponsor’)

13. Vodafone

14. Ford – Champions League

17. MasterCard – Champions League

19. Sony – Champions League

So, the two odd men out appear to be Reebok and Vodafone.  Now, Vodafone is a massive sponsor of sport and had a run with Man Utd a while back from which they may still be seeing a halo effect.  Reebok sponsors Ryan Giggs (Man Utd), Thierry Henry (Barca) and formally kitted out Liverpool and Man City.  AS Roma are the only club in the top 20 not aligned with a big sponsor.

I think a big winner here may be Audi.  Not a name I immediately associated with big time European football, I was surprised to see them so high.  But they have a variety of partnerships with leading clubs, allowing them to also create the Audi Cup in July 2009, which featured ManU, Bayern Munich and AC Milan along with Boca Juniors of Argentina.  I don’t think they’ve spent the same type of money as some of the other top 10 brands, bet I suspect they are reaping rewards from their associations.  Look too for Umbro to move up the charts if the English National Team can make a run in the 2010 FIFA World Cup this summer.