Fifa emerges from under the covers - a sponsorship crisis for anyone that cares about branding...?

Deep down, global football may be too big to fail, in that this could be just another crisis...

However, given that a sponsor's nightmare has to be the possibility of the star succumbing to drugs, booze or worse, Fifa, by exception, can be no exception.

In sponsorship, nothing beats the speed with which a sponsor slides from under a problem package. The obligatory public responses of some of the biggest brands in terms of expressing concern, disappointment, have to be code for 'lets work out the best way of getting out of here, fast...'  And as demand usually determines prices of advertising in sports sponsorship, those that decide to weather it out, will find some consolation in reduced rate-cards...

Players, themselves conscious of personal shelf-life limitations, will also focus on how they can distance themselves from the fall-out...

Leaving the consumer, that docile recipient of unprecedented brand-based revelations over the past few years, to vote in the only way possible, with their feet...

Meanwhile, as the US authorities have already said, this is only the beginning...and no amount of blethering will make a difference...