FIFA in Crisis — June 2015 Note

Edited on Jul 7, 2026.

Sibling piece: FIFA Reform Mandate — June 2015 Note. Current playbook: The FIFA Communications Playbook.

FIFA is in the biggest reputational crisis of its 111-year history.

On May 27, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed a 47-count indictment against 14 FIFA officials and marketing executives. Racketeering. Wire fraud. Money laundering. Swiss authorities executed parallel arrests at the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich the same morning. Two days later, on May 29, Sepp Blatter was re-elected FIFA president. On June 2, four days after his re-election, Blatter announced his resignation.

This is EPR's real-time note from the days immediately following.

The sponsor response

Sponsor language has ranged from measured to sharp. Visa's May 27 statement — issued within hours of the indictment — is the sharpest sponsor language any FIFA Partner has used in the modern era. The relevant passage: Visa said that "should FIFA fail to take swift and immediate steps" to address the concerns, it had informed FIFA that it would "reassess our sponsorship." Coca-Cola, Adidas, McDonald's, and Anheuser-Busch (Budweiser) issued statements the same day and in the days following.

The coordination among the sponsors — not formally announced, but visible in the language choices and the timing — is the story sponsor executives across international sport are studying this week. Coalition pressure without formal coalition structure. The mechanic works because the sponsors do not need to sign a joint statement to signal alignment; parallel language on the same timing is the signal.

What comes next

Blatter's resignation announcement does not take effect immediately. He remains president until an extraordinary congress can be scheduled to elect a successor. Prince Ali bin Hussein of Jordan, who lost the May 29 election, is expected to be among the candidates. The reform mandate — governance transparency, term limits, independent oversight — is being drafted in FIFA's Zurich headquarters and in sponsor boardrooms in Portland, Atlanta, Herzogenaurach, Chicago, and St. Louis.

The playbook for what happens next is being written in real time. This post will not attempt to predict it. The reform mandate piece published later this month covers the structural questions the extraordinary congress will have to address.

The takeaways for sports communications

Parallel sponsor language is a coalition without a coalition. Visa, Coca-Cola, Adidas, McDonald's, and Anheuser-Busch did not issue a joint statement. They issued individual statements on the same timing with the same posture. That is a coalition mechanic every property, sponsor, and rights-holder will now study.

A re-election under indictment does not survive. Blatter's May 29 win was structurally undone within four days. The lesson generalizes to any leader retained by an insider vote under external legal pressure.

Governance reform is the exit ramp. The reform mandate now being drafted is the only path that lets FIFA hold the sponsor base. The extraordinary congress is the test.