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At ENS the single biggest influence on our calendar are sports fixtures, both on and off the field. In our world of football PR the next few weeks sees not only several derby matches, but business events such as Leaders in Football in London, FAW Player of the Year Awards in Cardiff and Soccerex in Nigeria. So immersed are we in the business of sport that it is always a pleasure when we are reminded about the joy it brings, as ENS’ Managing Director, Rebecca Hopkins, found out on a trip to Africa last year. ‘Travel may broaden the mind but I never expected my abiding memory of a trip to Ethiopia to be of conversations about football. From the cathedrals of Lalibela to the boats of Lake Tana, locals would ask us which team we supported, whether Rooney was preferable to Van Persie or did football get any more beautiful than when Thierry Henry kicked a ball? Local bajas (basically tuk tuks – but with more football stickers) are driven by men more intent on discussing City’s victory over United than the cost of the fare. As someone who prefers athletics to football (there, I’ve said it!) I thought I’d charter safer waters; Firehiwot Dado and Buzunesh Deba had just done the double at the New York marathon and I thought Haile Gebrselassie would have been solid ground too – but no, it was football, football, football. Perhaps when your cabbie can do six miles in 30 minutes, not an uncommon statistic, Olympic standard running is less impressive – it must be like everyone in the UK being able to jump about five inches less than Philips Idowu. With hindsight the power of English football had been impressed upon me a few years earlier. I set off to see the Temples of Cambodia with a very tall boyfriend in tow. The Siem Reap locals are largely Khymer which means they are not big in any direction, so imagine the delight of a group of especially small nine year-olds when a 6’ 10”, 19 stone man unfurled himself from a tuk tuk (like a baja – minus the football stickers). Aside from temporarily confusing him with Sylvester Stallone (I kid you not) they were then obsessed with which sport he played, listing football, basketball and baseball followed by utter disgust when he declaimed his rugby credentials. They realized their disappointment had possibly been rude so they sweetly asked him to show them his ‘guns’ before skipping off into the dusty distance chanting ‘We love Liverpool. Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, Michael Owen…’ All enchantingly lyrical names when sung with a Khymer lilt. All the kids in Cambodia I met didn’t simply love Liverpool FC, they LOVED it and with a passion that would make Ian Rush seem half hearted. Every man, woman and child in Ethiopia were either Man Utd to the core or Gooners forever – with an amazing amount of branded team tops to prove it. It isn’t just Ethiopia – our client, Craig Bellamy, enjoys rock star-like status in Sierra Leone and I didn’t meet a local in China when I was working on the Olympics who didn’t shame me with their knowledge of the Premiership. The thing that strikes me about all these countries is that so much has been achieved without a comprehensive and accessible digital infrastructure. In the west online PR is now a fundamental part of any successful campaign, in emerging markets there is no substitute for good TV coverage and for direct action locally. However there is one universal truth regardless of how clubs market themselves, the global language of football is undeniable and growing.
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Football, Cambodia, travel, Rooney, Van Persie, children,
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