‘For the game, for the world’: An analysis of FIFA’s CSR initiatives

Abstract

Given the significant and often negative impacts of sport mega-events on host nations, including high costs and lingering environmental challenges, many event organizers, such as the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), began implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives to generate positive effects while lessening negative perceptions. Despite the growing body of literature examining the practice of sport CSR, research on how global governing sport agencies implement and adapt these programs to reflect the culture of the host is lacking. This study begins to address this gap by exploring how FIFA tailored its CSR initiatives for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and 2014 event in Brazil. Engaging in CSR is already a daunting task. For FIFA, this challenge was compounded because of the host nations’ complex social, political, and economic concerns, along with skepticism surrounding FIFA’s efforts because of its history of corruption, which recently culminated in an organizational scandal that prompted arrests of high-ranking officials and temporary banishment of its former president. To better investigate CSR using a critical lens, we draw from interdisciplinary research and employ a multi-case study approach to analyze FIFA’s CSR initiatives, arguing that these efforts largely failed to reflect cultural considerations, providing little benefit to Brazilians and South Africans. In doing so, we build upon Zaharna’s in-awareness approach to public relations by merging it with critical CSR research, demonstrating the need for sponsoring organizations to follow an in-awareness approach when practicing international CSR while also adopting participatory approaches that engage members of the affected community to increase and sustain the positive benefits of these initiatives.