|
Index on Sponsorship: the drugs don’t work (for the brand) |
|
|
|
Wednesday, 28 November 2007 |
|
Deutsche Telekom pulls the plug on a 16-year association with the sport of cycling after a series of doping scandals.
German carrier Deutsche Telekom and, more recently, its wireless arm T-Mobile have enjoyed a long association with professional cycling... most notably its blue riband event, the Tour de France. Its very prominence in such events has now become the undoing of its further involvement: successive doping scandals, becoming worse year-on-year and involving some leading T-Mobile riders, have forced the company to end its involvement as team sponsors.
Yesterday’s decision came just weeks after T-Mobile had confirmed its continued sponsorship to 2010. Such a deal is thought to be worth several million euros per year to the sponsored team.
"We arrived at this decision to separate our brand from further exposure from doping in sport and cycling specifically. This was a difficult decision given our long history of support for professional cycling and the efforts of Bob Stapleton in managing the team in 2007", said Deutsche Telekom Board member and CEO of T-Mobile International Hamid Akhavan. “We have an obligation to our employees, customers and shareholders to focus our attention and resources on our core businesses”, he added. "We have worked very hard with the current team management to promote a clean cycling sport but we reached the decision to continue our efforts to rid all sports of doping by applying our resources in other directions.”
It’s a blow for cycling, although one foreseen here (click). It also illustrates just how easily the allure of sports sponsorship can come back and bite ICT benefactors on the bum. In which case they probably need an injection…
Jim Chalmers
|
Latest News 
