The soccer World Cup in Qatar is in full swing. The sporting event is lamented fervently, especially in Germany. This politicization of the games has paid off, but for China.
The World Cup in Qatar splits Germany from the rest of the world in particular. The lack of freedom rights for homosexuals and the sometimes catastrophic working conditions in Qatar are not welcomed by other nations either.
But they are nowhere lamented with the same fervor. Symbolic actions and the termination of existing sponsorship contracts can be found above all in the ranks of German players, politicians and sponsors.
While the previous World Cups, including the 2018 World Cup in Putin’s Russia, were primarily perceived as sporting events, this World Cup in Germany is experiencing a wave of politicization.
Gabor Steingart is one of the best-known journalists in the country. He publishes the newsletter The Pioneer Briefing. The podcast of the same name is Germany’s leading daily podcast for politics and business. Since May 2020, Steingart has been working with his editorial staff on the ship “The Pioneer One”. Before founding Media Pioneer, Steingart was, among other things, Chairman of the Management Board of the Handelsblatt Media Group. You can subscribe to his free newsletter here.
In the rest of the world, the high moral tone of the Germans is understood, but people don’t agree. There is no indication that viewership ratings and business around this championship could collapse:
The ratings published by Fifa show a different reality: the number of viewers has increased. For example, the data for Brazil, France and Great Britain sometimes show significantly higher ratings during the opening game than at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
The investment house Wedbush Securities has calculated that the World Cup in Brazil, for example, brought in sales of around 400 million euros for the sports goods manufacturer Adidas, i.e. almost three percent of annual sales.
But even at Nike, it was about one percent of sales at $325 million. Adidas CFO Harm Ohlmeyer expects global demand to continue despite the controversy.
He informed investors last week that he expects a “tailwind” of up to 400 million euros in sales in connection with the soccer World Cup.
In addition, the sporting goods manufacturer states that in the football sector alone, sales increased by more than 20 percent in the first half of the year.
When asked by Bloomberg, the seven main sponsors of Fifa stated that they did not want to change anything in their commitment. In addition to Adidas, these also include Coca Cola, Wanda Group, Hyundai/Kia, Qatar Airways, Qatar Energy and the credit card company Visa.
According to GlobalData, all sponsors together will invest around $1.7 billion. Ticket sales also show that there is no value-related purchase by fans. According to Fifa, almost three million tickets have been sold for Qatar so far.
This clearly exceeded the figures for the World Cup in Russia, where just over 2.4 million tickets were sold. Despite the beer ban in the stadium – for many German fans already a deprivation of liberty – the stands are not empty, but filled to a record high.
The match between Mexico and Argentina in the second group stage of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar was attended by almost 89,000 spectators, the highest number at a World Cup match in 28 years.
Fifa’s finance department is also satisfied: As the world football governing body reports, it has achieved revenues of 7.5 billion US dollars in the past four years with commercial contracts in connection with the football World Cup.
The revenue that Fifa announced yesterday, Sunday, is one billion dollars more than the comparable four-year cycle of the Russia World Cup.
Conclusion: The politicization of the games has paid off, albeit for China. Also due to the dissatisfaction with the Germans – Energy Minister Robert Habeck had called the Qatar venue a “stupid idea” – the state-owned Qatar Energy concluded the largest gas supply contract of all time (duration: 27 years) with the Middle Kingdom, meanwhile still none after Germany LPG flows.
You can’t have everything: some have the gas and we have the good feeling. If there were a correct posture trophy, Germany would already be in the final after the draw against Spain.
High energy costs, inflation: Many Germans are currently suffering from money worries. One topic that has not been discussed much so far are so-called index leases.
They allow the landlord to increase the basic rent each year as much as the consumer price index has risen. Currently, an increase of 10.4 percent would be possible.
We want to devote ourselves to the topic of index rental contracts and draw on the experiences of our readers. Do you have an index lease? If so, are you concerned about potential increases? Or did it already exist? How did you react?
Write us your story to mein-bericht@focus.de, preferably with your full name, place of residence and a telephone number for queries. We will publish some of the submissions.
