FIFA Fiasco - How Will The Watch Brands React?

Sepp Blatter has looked dodgy to me ever since faraway 1994, when I watched FIFA’s portly president take to a New York stage in a presentation for the US World Cup.

Blatter might look like the tiny roly-poly Swiss lawyer he is, but that is not how he sees himself or how he is treated around the world by princes and prime ministers desperate for his favour.

His entrance that day was as imperial as his diminutive stature would allow, slow and stately and accompanied by liveried trumpeters. This was a homage to an emperor, made all the weirder because the background music was Aaron Copland’s 'Fanfare for the Common Man.'

Sixteen years on, Blatter is still the little emperor pretending to be the common man. With a bid process that saw Russia bagging the 2018 World Cup and Qatar the 2022, the cat – in the shape of FIFA’s obsession with money and the corruption at the heart of the organisation – is out of the bag.

There is no bigger sporting event on earth than the World Cup and traditionally no bigger, safer marketing opportunity for a major brand to hook up with. Seiko and Casio, producer of the G-Shock, duked it out to be the official timer for decades, winning the title five and three times respectively.

This year it was luxury watchmaker Hublot's turn, not just as the first official timekeeper for the South Africa and Brazil World Cups but as watchmaking partner for FIFA itself. At the press conference, Blatter was already sporting a glossy looking Hublot, doubtless a present from the wife. “It identifies itself with energy and power,” he cooed. “It is also an elegant watch.” Just the thing for the discerning ruler.

Hublot is available in Selfridges Wonder Room, London. For a full range of Sports watches, see www.time2.co.uk.

Hublot’s courtly boss Jean-Claude Biver, meanwhile, could barely contain himself, describing football as “a phenomenal religion”, while the voiceover on Hublot TV gushed over “the most important contract in [the company’s] history.” After last week, it remains to be seen how long the euphoria will last.

Favourites England won just two votes in the race for the 2018 World Cup, exiting first in what looked very much like a stage-managed humiliation. FIFA’s chiefs doubtless think they have punished England for its hubris and the ghastly English media for its temerity in doing what journalists do: investigate corruption, in this case corruption inside FIFA’s glass palace on Lake Geneva.

But the media will be back, like an avenging horde. Indeed, over the coming years every English investigative journalist worth his salt and every tabloid editor with a hangover and a grudge will see FIFA as the most deserving of targets. I wouldn’t want to be Sepp Blatter over the next few years and I wouldn’t want to be his partner. Watchmakers beware!