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COMMENT: Aon sees Red but will fans cry foul?
19 July 2010
Insurance broker Aon has signed a four year shirt sponsorship deal with Manchester United football club, replacing AIG. Reactions' contributing editor Garry Booth, says he hopes they know what they are doing.
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So insurance broker Aon has signed a four year shirt sponsorship deal with Manchester United football club, replacing AIG. I hope they know what they are doing.
Aon CEO Greg Case noted: “Our sponsorship of Manchester United is an important amplifier of our Aon United vision – to work together as one team for clients, for colleagues and for communities in order to grow our firm.”
A laudable aim but it doesn’t always work out like that in the febrile, fickle world of footie.
Look at what happened at the World Cup recently. Credit Agricole pulled its TV ads supporting the French national team during the tournament, as did the fast food company Quick, after the players’ (and manager’s) poor performance both on and off the pitch.
The once invincible French team made an embarrassing early exit from the competition, their form undermined by infighting and sackings.
There’s always a good deal of reputational risk around any soccer club: it is a volatile business populated by unscrupulous agents, kiss & tell merchants and sometimes unstable players.
Manchester United, its owners, its players and coach are always under the media spotlight. That’s partly because they are winners and have a trophy cupboard the size of an aircraft hanger at home in Old Trafford. But it is also because a lot of people are willing them bad luck and want them to trip up.
Soccer is a partisan sport: for every Man Utd fan in the UK there are at least two anti-red zealots chanting the mantra “anyone but Man U” throughout the season.
Incredibly, even many of Man U’s own fans don’t wear the colours to games. They wear yellow and green to show their dislike of the entrepreneur Glazer family that holds a controlling stake in the club.
Case says that every one of Aon’s 36,000 “global colleagues” will receive a Manchester United team shirt. If you would like one I suggest keeping an eye on eBay. I’m guessing that more than a few of Aon’s global colleagues are City fans. . . or Barca... or Bayern…. Or Inter… or Dynamo…