The program featured two experts, the former Basel public prosecutor Markus Mohler and Thomas Kistner, the German journalist for sports politics at the South German Newspapercriticized the decision of the Swiss judiciary.

As the ombudsman's office announced on Wednesday evening, Kistner had said, among other things, that the Swiss justice system was "extremely questionable". Again and again, a kind of "caring protection of functionaries is practiced". Infantino was the only third person to have his say.

The extraordinary federal prosecutors responsible for the recruitment had lodged a complaint against the article. In their view, it was unacceptable for a journalist from abroad to criticize the Swiss authorities, for this criticism to go unchallenged and for the complainants not to be confronted with it.

Tagesschau" defended its report and the selection of experts. They were a criminal law expert and a world-renowned journalist for sports politics. In addition, the statements were clearly recognizable as subjective and were not directed against the prosecutors, but against the Swiss justice system in general.

No opposing position

However, the ombudsman's office takes a different view and upheld the complaint. The article left the public with the impression of "nepotism", as the discontinuation of the proceedings was described as "strange" and there was talk of "lack of transparency" and "secrecy".

It was not enough to let the former defendant speak as a counter-position. Other experts should have been consulted in order to contradict the overall impression of "favoritism". The "Tagesschau" had therefore violated the principle of fairness with the report. (SDA)

With its statements, some of which were absolute, the world football association Fifa had created the "false and misleading impression" in its commercial communication that the World Cup in Qatar was already climate-neutral or CO2-neutral before and during the tournament, the SLK announced on Wednesday. The burden of proof lies with the advertising company.

In the proceedings, however, Fifa had not been able to prove the accuracy of these statements. It did state that it had already compensated for the 3.63 million tons of CO2 protected in advance. But it had not been able to prove this compensation and had not submitted a concept for any further compensation.

Even if the estimate should correspond to the final figures, it remained unclear to the SLK whether the promised compensation was at all realistic. It is also unclear whether the compensation measures comply with Swiss standards. These required, among other things, "a complete and permanent removal of CO2 from the atmosphere".

Recommendation for waiver of statements

The Second Chamber of the SLK therefore upheld all five appeals from Switzerland, France, Belgium, the UK and the Netherlands. "As long as there are no definitive and generally accepted methods to measure sustainability or to ensure its implementation," a company is not allowed to claim that sustainability goals have been achieved.

The SLK recommends that Fifa refrain from calling the World Cup in Qatar climate neutral in the future - unless it is able to prove all CO2 emissions of the tournament and their offsets at the time of communication.

Climate Alliance delighted

One of the complainants, Climate Alliance Switzerland, reacted with satisfaction to the decision. Among other things, it had criticized the fact that Fifa had not taken into account the effects of the shuttle flights from Dubai, Riyadh or Kuwait to Qatar in its calculations. CO2 emissions from the construction of the stadiums had also been ignored.

The ruling is therefore "a strong message to all companies that want to engage in greenwashing," it said in a statement. Companies and organizations such as Fifa can no longer avoid dealing with their actual footprint.

The Swiss Fairness Commission is a self-regulatory body of the communications industry. It issues recommendations, but no judgments that can be enforced by the state. The decision is not legally binding. (SDA)

With 3.4 million spectators on site and millions more around the globe, the World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world. The final match between Argentina and France in December 2022 alone was watched by around 1.5 billion people. The tournament thus offers sponsors a unique opportunity to present themselves.

For the second time, Webrepublic orchestrated Fifa's communication initiatives in collaboration with the ten largest sponsors around the international tournament in Qatar. Two dozen marketing specialists and sports enthusiasts from Webrepublic launched and managed 60 global campaigns during the hot five weeks. Around 2.5 billion impressions and 700 million commercial video views were generated. By comparison, during Super Bowl week 2022, the NFL generated 1.8 billion impressions and just over 600 million video views on its social media channels.

"Our team developed the campaigns and played them out and optimized them globally in 'real time' - these are key success factors for brands," says Tom Hanan, founder and CEO of Webrepublic. "This was only possible because we employ specialists in-house for all digital marketing disciplines who have in-depth technical know-how and speak ten languages."

New era in sponsorship with performance marketing approach

The Webrepublic team "Rawr", specialized in sponsorship and sports marketing is convinced that a new era has begun in sponsorship. Brands have become more demanding, they want to get closer to the fans - traditional logo exposure and awareness during the event alone are neither sufficient nor up to date.

That's why Webrepublic has chosen a new approach that combines sponsorship and performance marketing. What is needed are holistic communication strategies that are independent of time and place, and that work across all channels. "It's no longer about generating as many impressions as possible. Our task is to optimize all campaigns for more complex goals such as engagements, website visits or conversions and to combine them with exciting storytelling," says Alexander Riggers, Head of Growth & Innovation at Rawr.

Campaign highlights around the Fifa World Cup 2022

Three campaigns will be used to illustrate what the integrated approach of sponsorship and performance marketing looks like in practice. Hyundai used the attention of the World Cup to make a contribution to sustainability. For this, Webrepublic developed a gamified application to educate fans about their environmental impact, encourage direct action and interact with the brand. The campaign achieved seven times higher exposure than expected. It also generated great engagement from fans, who shared videos and photos of their sustainable pledges in action on social media, demonstrating their support for the message.

For Crypto.com, Webrepublic activated football fans via sponsored content: In the first step, footage from the Fifa archive generated brand awareness. Subsequently, fans could cash out their earned winnings in Bitcoin in the Crypto Playzone. The performance campaign for a sweepstake simultaneously increased the download of the Crypto app.

In addition to gamification, another trend around events like the World Cup is festivalization: To promote the Fifa Fan Festivals in the host cities and drive traffic to the registration and ticket pages, Webrepublic activated over 90 creative elements in the Fifa+ inventory, on social media and in Google search ads. The result: festivals in eight cities worldwide, with over 1.8 million visitors in Doha alone.