Introduction: The UEFA Champions League is a European football tournament that is held every year across Europe. With over 300 million television viewers, the league’s final is the most watched annual sporting event worldwide. For an event of this magnitude, the stakes for everyone involved are very high (appendix 1). This essay includes a short description of the tournament along with an overview of the stakeholders, followed by an analysis of one of the sponsors, Heineken.

Description: UEFA has been organizing the Champions league since 1955, although it changed format in 1992. Since 1992, the competition is divided into several parts; it begins in mid-July with three knockout-qualifying rounds and a play-off …show more content…

With over 4 billion viewers per season in 227 nations around the world, this premier sporting event has become truly global and fits perfectly with the Heineken brand, which is the world’s most international premium beer." (Francois van Boxmeer, citation: http://www.heinekeninternational.com/uefa.aspx) Both parties did not disclose the figures of the sponsorship. However in 2005, according to the announcement of the Heineken N.V.’s 2004 full year results presentation, it was funded by “part of the additional €100 million annual marketing investment”. (Heineken 2004 full-year result presentation. Citation: http://www.heinekeninternational.com/uefa.aspx) [pic]

Like each sponsor of the UEFA Champions League, Heineken Brand has four advertising boards around the pitch, logo placement in interviews before and after the matches, as well as tickets to each match, which they can distribute as part of an advertising campaign The marketing operation’s success has suffered from only one inconvenient; in Spain, Turkey, France, Switzerland and Russia alcohol sponsorship is prohibited. In France, Spain and Switzerland, Heineken’s simple but emblematic slogan, “Open your world” or the famous sentence “Enjoy responsibly” replaces the Heineken logo on their ad boards. In Russia however, the Heineken advertisement is completely replaced by “No To Racism” boards. Heineken has had no problems with the European governments, with the