FIFA elections and Adidas

So who will become next FIFA president, Sepp Blatter’s former Lottofee (kind of the equivalent of the women that stand next to the wheel of fortune) Gianni Infantino or notorious human rights offender Bahrain’s Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa?

I don’t know, but it will be interesting to see if Adidas, as FIFA’s main sponsor, has distributed its bets evenly, or if it has taken sides. I will definitely watch the Adidas stock tomorrow (something which I don’t normally do, since I don’t own any.). Why? Because in the last couple of years, though the FIFA and German Football Association scandals did not really affect profitability in the long run, there always where small dents in Adidas’ stock price. When 7 FIFA officials were arrested in May 27, 2015 the stock immediately fell by some 5 percent. When the German FA scandal broke loose in which former Adidas boss Louis-Dreyfus was implicated in buying the 2006 World cup, the stock also fell by some 50 cents. It’s hard to trace causality here, the stock is going strong again from August onwards (investors seem to be frolicking about Adidas’ role in the 2016 European Cup etc.), but watching the stock could reveal some interesting aspects about the underlying political economy of FIFA corruption.