Mastercard Carefully Watching Events Unfold at UEFA After Platini’s Suspension

By Christian Radnedge

The senior vice president of global sponsorships at Mastercard says he will be keeping a close eye on developments at partner UEFA after it was announced that president Michel Platini had been suspended from football for 90 days.

Michael Robichaud was speaking at the Leaders Sports Business Summit in London just hours after the FIFA ethics committee announced the 90-day bans for president Sepp Blatter, Platini and secretary-general Jerome Valcke.

Platini has since announced he will appeal his ban through the world governing body’s appeals committee. Both he and Blatter deny any wrongdoing.

The major sponsors in football had been criticised previously for not having spoken out about the ongoing scandal and allegations of corruption surrounding world football’s governing body and various federations.

Last week though, FIFA’s US-based sponsors Coca-Cola, Visa, Anheuser-Busch and McDonald’s jointly urged reform in a united statement and said that Blatter should stand down.

Mastercard is a former partner of FIFA, ending ties rather acrimoniously with Visa taking its place. However the credit company is still a partner of European football’s governing body, as one of the major sponsors of the UEFA Champions League.

Robichaud was cautious but keen that proceedings in Switzerland were followed closely.

“It’s such a new developing thing,” he said. “I would say this; Mastercard is certainly like any other brand that says it is absolutely paramount that in anything we participate in or how we act for our business in what we can be accountable for is important that we watch these things.

“But it’s so new, I haven’t actually caught up with all of it yet.”