David Ginola PR campaign will not bring the change Fifa needs

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/jan/16/david-ginola-fifa-pr-campaign

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David Ginola is getting £250,000 for a fortnight’s work fronting a PR campaign that will more than pay for itself in attendant publicity for an online bookmaker that thrives on controversy.

For the firm, then, Ginola is worth it. For the rest of a football world contemplating four more years of Sepp Blatter, knowing that long overdue culture change at Fifa is impossible without the 78-year-old being prised from the organisation’s $100m HQ? Not so much.

This is a bookmaker that employs a Head of Mischief and proudly lists on its website 16 stunts ranging from deliberately provocative ads offering odds on old ladies being run over to establishment-baiting Hollywood style signs erected above Celtic Manor during the Ryder Cup and the rolling hills beyond Cheltenham during the Festival.

That is the context in which its protestations that Ginola’s bid to unseat Blatter as head of world football should be taken seriously must be viewed.

They may also have been taken more seriously if teaser emails promising “BIG INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL STORY BREAKING 9.15am TOMORROW” had not been accompanied by a tabloid exclusive on the morning of the press conference.

Other “highlights” from the bookmaker’s showreel include Nicklas Bendtner’s fine for wearing branded pants at Euro 2012 and, more depressingly, “banned” ads featuring a former Big Brother contestant said to be having an affair with a high-profile footballer alongside the caption “Blow me”. Some of these stunts are clever, some downright annoying and some severely lacking in taste.

The company in question can sometimes feel like a breath of fresh air but more often like the Fast Show’s annoying office bore Colin Hunt made flesh, forever squirting water in your eye from a plastic flower.

So far, so what. If the company in question wants to promote its business through a series of elaborate pranks, it can. But Ginola’s bid for the Fifa presidency feels more insidious for several reasons.

Firstly, because this is a serious business. The outpouring of support on Twitter for the idea of a credible former footballer running against Blatter on a reform ticket showed just how much untapped demand there is for a genuine alternative. To turn that into a marketing opportunity is cynical, at very best.

But worse is the fact the £2.3m campaign is to be “crowd funded”. The bookmaker has kicked things off with a £250,000 investment to cover Ginola’s fee. Challenged by the Guardian, the former PFA player of the year admitted he was being paid to run. But if he is so passionate about the future of football, why is he being paid at all? Not only that, but a breakdown in costs on the campaign website revealed that while the first £1m will go to the campaign, of the next £1.3m raised by the public 10% will be diverted to Ginola himself.

To ask ordinary fans to dip into their pockets to fund £100,000 in “security costs”, £565,000 advertising costs and £160,000 for Soho-based PR agencies to fritter away on more silly stunts is bad enough. To ask them to give 10% of everything they contribute to a multi-millionaire footballer is breathtaking.

Not only that, but the whole project severely calls into question the judgment of ChangeFifa – an organisation that exists to flag up Fifa’s tangled web of patronage and corruption. Run on a shoestring out of the United States, it appeared to have been summoned to lend a fig leaf of credibility to a depressing endeavour.

Ginola, whose motives may be pure, did not help himself at a car crash of a press conference. If asking him how the International Football Association Board works seemed unfair (not even those on the Ifab board know how Ifab works), then he might have been expected to be able to name at least one member of the Fifa executive committee.

“I am going to devote my days, my weeks, my months until May to this cause,” he vowed, before jumping on a plane back to Paris to prepare for Saturday night’s French equivalent of Match of the Day.

In all likelihood, he will be able to pocket his fee by the end of the month. Ginola faces serious practical hurdles. He needs to convince five of the 209 Fifa federations to nominate him before the end of January and demonstrate he has had an active role in football for two of the last five years.

His last public role in football was as an ambassador for England’s failed 2018 World Cup bid, which ended in ignomy in December 2010. He certainly knows how to pick them.The press conference kicked off with a showreel of Ginola’s outrageous skills and enchanting flair on the pitch. Better to remember him that way rather than for his role in this dubious stunt.

If the 47-year-old falls at the first hurdle that will presumably enable the company to call an end to its campaign after a couple of weeks, claiming it’s raised an important issue and at least had a go. But what about those who donated?

A serious, well funded, compelling alternative to Blatter fronted by a credible figure within football is long, long overdue. This isn’t it. Instead, it has all the hallmarks of a plan that sounded like a jolly wheeze in a marketing brainstorming session but in the cold light of day looks less and less appetising. If this is the best we can muster to take on Blatter, perhaps we get the Fifa we deserve.