World Cup Football 2006: Injury and Sponsors

(By Biplob Kishore Deb)
English superstar Wayne Rooney is out of the field and England Coach Soven Goran Erricson said that a miracle only could allow him to participate in the World cup final 2006 Germany. He got serious injury in his leg recently while playing in English Premier League. This is a big blow on the hope of English to make this world cup another 1966 (England won world cup for the first and last time in 1966).

All of the football fans of the world have already known about this shocking news. But if I ask you that who are feeling sorrow for Rooney’s falling in injury most then you will reply that all of his fans world wide, English supporters, players as well as their Swedish coach. Well, you are right but not totally. To me, the companies who have sponsorship deal with Rooney and this is more than 8 million pound per year. Now they are facing a nightmare on the promotion of their product. They will not be able to cash in from his star image if he does not play in tournament.

World’s biggest sports company, Nike, has £5 million per year and another company ASDA has £3 million sponsorship with Rooney and he was supposed to introduce this company as a supermarket of the world cup. Official partner of world cup sponsor Coca-cola has also a deed of £1 million. Thus, I think that it is the sponsors who are sad most for the injuries as they are going to suffer huge losses.
What do you think?
Source:
http://football.guardian.co.uk/worldcup2006/story/0,,1765750,00.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/01/nroon01.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/01/ixnewstop.html

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060505/asp/sports/story_6186111.asp