The goals scored by the Serbian team in the match against it and Romania's national football team possible failure to qualify for the World Cup are in turn causing other sectors of domestic business to lose potential revenues.
The cumulated revenues worth above 20m euros, estimated by ZF, which industries such as beverages, restaurants and bars, tourism, as well as mass media could have derived, will vanish into thin air once the football team fails to qualify for the World Cup.
Beverage producers, owners of restaurants and bars, travel agencies and the mass-media have regretted more than any national team supporter the outcome of the match with Serbia, which weighed a lot in the national team's losing a top position in qualifying group seven for the World Cup of South Africa of 2010. Romania can still qualify provided it wins all the points at stake and the other teams lose several matches. The first test was yesterday's match with Austria in Vienna (broadcast by PRO TV).
Should the national team fail to qualify, the beer industry would suffer losses worth around 15m euros.
Mihai Ghyka, former CEO of InBev Romania, a company that owns Bergenbier brand, sponsor of the national team during 1998-2000, explains that sponsorship contracts include special clauses related to qualification premiums, accounting as a rule for a minimum 20% in the contract value. "In the case of a failure to qualify, these premiums are lost. Yet, sponsors' ad budgets are not built on qualification/failure to qualify assumptions, but rather on business targets," he said. Therefore, he considers that part of the money earmarked for football in 2009 and 2010 will be transferred to other marketing activities.
Another industry standing to lose from the national team's failure to qualify is tourism. Travel agencies could have made at least 5m euros from the sale of packages for the World Championship.
Restaurant owners are also hurt. Moreover, sports programmes and publications could have had higher revenues in the wake of the national team's qualification. They could have enjoyed a higher audience and therefore bigger ad revenues.
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