Chinese Dairy Giant Mengniu Cements FIFA World Cup Partnership

FIFA has announced a deal that sees Chinese dairy giant Mengniu become an official partner of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, building on a relationship which began in the 2018 World Cup.

During next year’s World Cup, Mengniu’s branding will be promoted across all official tournament venues in Qatar and on FIFA’s related digital platforms.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, FIFA had earlier mentioned that most World Cup broadcast and sponsorship deals were already in the pipeline, meaning that the global football authority is on course to achieve its forecasted US$6.44 billion profit target for the 2019 to 2022 financial cycle. Typically, brands need to fork out between US$9m and US$23m for an official FIFA World Cup sponsorship deal.

FIFA secretary general, Fatma Samoura, said, “Mengniu is committed to promoting a healthier world through nutritious products and safeguarding a sustainable planet. These values echo FIFA’s values of promoting healthy lives through football, as well as fair play. We look forward to strengthening our relationship with Mengniu and the wider Chinese market in the build up to what will be a truly unique competition – the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.”

Jeffrey Minfang Lu, chief executive of Mengniu group, added: “[The agreement] builds on our successful collaboration with FIFA on at the FIFA World Cup in Russia in 2018, and sits well with our five-year plan to develop Mengniu into an international dairy leader, a nutrition and health platform, a company with its strong cultural gene and its own sustainable development mode, and a brand loved by consumers across the world.”

According to ASN Data, Mengniu has been the biggest investor (47.5%, US$893.5m) in the dairy beverage category across the Asian sponsorship market over the past three years, with the bulk of the spends (US$848.8m) going to non-sport platforms. Big ticket deals in the US$50-100m range have been invested in backing Hunan TV shows such as Dance Smash, Back to the Field and Golden Eagle.     

While sports-related spends take up only 5% of the dairy giant’s hefty sponsorship investment in Asia (US$44.7m), it does include significant plays such as backing the 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo, the Chinese Super League (CSL), NBA China and a celebrity endorsement with Lionel Messi.