Vinicius Junior, racism in LaLiga and how not to respond in a crisis
The decision of Javier Tebas to engage in a war of words with Real Madrid's racially-abused attacker is a big gamble.
It was on April 10 2017, when stock in United Continental Holdings dropped by more than four per cent, wiping nearly $1bn off its value.
The reason? Leaked footage of a screaming passenger being dragged aggressively off an overbooked United Airlines plane.
The furore caused by the clip was worsened by the response of chief executive Oscar Munoz who strangely overlooked the fact that the passenger was forced off.
"This is an upsetting event to all of us here at United. I apologise for having to re-accommodate these customers,” he said in an ill-judged statement, leading to droves of tweets mocking him.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
An email to employees from Munoz describing the passenger in the clip as ‘disruptive and belligerent’ leaked and immediately went viral leading to demands for the CEOs resignation.
Munoz, would not last much longer at the helm of United Airlines after what many PR experts called a ‘textbook example of how not to respond in a crisis’.
He made the mistake of choosing to defend his organisation while grossly misjudging the public mood around the incendiary clip.
This week LaLiga President Javier Tebas trod a similar path, and like Munoz, finds himself engulfed in a crisis of his own making.
Big questions for LaLiga sponsors
By choosing to publicly rebuke Real Madrid’s Vinicius Jr, who faced persistent, clearly audible racist abuse during his team’s 1-0 defeat to Valencia at the Mestalla, instead of offering empathy, solidarity and pledging to protect the player, Tebas not only spectacularly misread the room, but has damaged the equity of his brand.
Brand equity is an important concept to organisations such as LaLiga, which is competing for eyeballs and euros with a lot of other big players.
Consider it the intangible value and reputation a brand holds, representing consumer perception, recognition, and loyalty. It is built over time through positive experiences, consistent messaging, and effective marketing, influencing consumer behaviour and financial performance.
In sport, rights holders with strong brand equity are more appealing to partners or prospective partners.
Many of the biggest sponsors in sport from FMCG brands to financial institutions, are very diligent when it comes to tracking their brand equity and the success of a partnership is often measured on these terms.
By hitting back at Vini Jr, Tebas, was attempting to protect some of his brand’s equity.
However, this backfired spectacularly, because some of the most influential voices in football have slammed Tebas and questioned whether he personifies the problem which has seen the Real Madrid star repeatedly, racially abused in away games, seemingly leading to no actual action such as banning orders or prosecutions.
The prevailing sentiment around LaLiga right now is overwhelmingly negative and that is the first indicator that the leadership of Tebas has failed in this moment.
Furthermore, LaLiga partners, Santander and Puma have both released statements condemning racism and distancing themselves from the statement of Tebas.
It is worth also noting that, as of next season LaLiga will be known as LaLiga EA Sports FC, as Santander’s long running- title sponsorship ends and Electronic Arts’ begins.
Will the games publisher, at the most important juncture in its history (breaking from Fifa to launch a new franchise), want to be the title sponsor of a league that regularly hosts the racist vilification of one of the world’s most popular, high profile young black footballers?
The decline of LaLiga
Perhaps the part of Vinicius Junior’s statement which really triggered Tebas was this:
“The championship that once belonged to Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Cristiano and Messi today belongs to racists.”
By most measures LaLiga has been declining since the noughties, when Real Madrid and FC Barcelona at least, were deemed the pinnacle of club football and regularly hoovered up the best talent across the continent.
A quarterly survey conducted by Ampere Analysis amongst sports fans aged 18-64 shows worrying trends for the Spanish league.
In 2017, 29 per cent of respondents said they followed the Premier League compared to 24 per cent for LaLiga. In Q1 2023, that gap has widened significantly - with 32 per cent interested in the former and 22 per cent the latter.
The Premier League is growing in popularity as LaLiga declines.
In 24 out of 27 countries, the Premier League is ahead of LaLiga, and this includes high growth markets such as China and India.
Worryingly for LaLiga, both Argentina and Brazil can boast a greater percentage of sports fans who follow the Premier League over its Spanish counterpart.
Only in Spain itself, and Mexico, do we see more interest in LaLiga than the Premier League, while Poland is level on 24 per cent for both leagues, probably thanks to the popularity of FC Barcelona’s Robert Lewandowski.
But the Polish striker is increasingly an outlier in the game - a genuine world class footballer who isn’t in the Premier League.
LaLiga, which has waved goodbye to Neymar, Ronaldo and Messi in recent years really needs Vinicius Junior. The Brazilian is comfortably the most exciting young attacker in a league filled with ageing stars.
So Tebas has not only damaged the equity of his brand - but has engaged in a war of words that he cannot win, because the player is infinitely more loved, supported and valued than any league president could ever be.
Even the most successful organisations cannot rest on their laurels when it comes to protecting their reputation.
But LaLiga is one on a steady decline, which makes the position of Tebas even more tenuous.
Player power
For all the division, distraction and damage social media has caused, I am thankful that we are in a world where Vinicius Junior does not need to rely on third parties such as his employers, publishers or god forbid, the league he plays in, to issue his comunicado oficials.
With more than 36 million followers on Instagram and close to seven million on Twitter, the 22 year-old Brazilian has a platform which allows him to get his unfettered view out there to the masses, which he has done this week to devastating effect.
Black footballers have faced racism as long as balls have been kicked in front of crowds.
It’s sobering to think what the black footballers of the 1970s and 80s would have said, if they had such a platform. Many suffered in silence.
Finally and most importantly, Tebas needed to respond differently, not because it was the savviest PR move, but because hordes of fans racially abusing a player, should go against LaLiga’s fundamental values and mission.
Unfortunately, at this point in time, I don’t think any of us really know what the organisation stands for beyond having a president that would choose to attack a player who the world saw get racially-abused.
I suspect some of the LaLiga’s brand partners might be asking themselves the same thing.
More thoughts on EA Sports FC…
It feels like the whole world is excited to see what we get from EA later this year when EA Sports FC comes out.
As mentioned above, it’s clear to me the game is being positioned closer to fan culture now they have broken away from Fifa, which is exciting.
I shared some of my views on the rebrand with The Drum in this piece.
And finally…
Thanks to all of you who have shared and recommended this newsletter.
I had a great response to my last piece on the IPL’s marketing strategy.
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