Marketing guideline by FIFA

[vardan]

Have you heard(or received notification) about marketing guideline by FIFA during the World Cup? Words such World Cup, World Cup 2018, Russia World Cup and any mix of these terms are prohibided to be used in any circumctances if there is no permission from FIFA.

Many of us are waiting and getting ready for this competition and such bariers can really harm our traffic. To be honest, I am a bit confused, if not World Cup, then what we can call the tournament in our posts? WC? Really? Toilet?

I understand that logos, clip arts and other media products can be prohibided to be used without license, but general words? If the competition's name is football World Cup, why I need to search alternatives?

Any thoughts?

[allaboutthebets]

I've not heard this before. Surely every website even BBC sky sports etc then wouldn't be able to say world cup?

[vardan]

Today I've received an email from RP Affiliates with a notification and link(xxxhttps://bit.ly/2x6xBlL) to FIFA's rules. Also they say, that the affiliates can't promote their brand, if these rules or restrictions aren't keeped.

[Cash Bonus]

Hi vardan, I've heard nothing as of yet about any marketing guidelines for FIFA, and you're right, it does sound unusual. My best guess is that you will hear something very soon about them regarding the GDPR which is still being enforced.

[Sherlock]

Are you sure you can write post like that full of W-words and C-words without FIFA authorisation?

No action. I will not restrict anything unless my AM proactively says me something or unless they send me takedown request.

[Aidan90]

I don't see how there is any way they can prohibit use of the phrase 'World Cup'... The term isn't even exclusive to football, all sports have a World Cup!

[Malikbhai]

The guys on the top at FIFA are smoking some special weed. They can't control what is being said or written on a platform as large as the internet. If the rules apply; that will probably be for the most visible web properties, mostly for the show and to target specific licensed operators and their affiliates.

[TheGooner]

I had a discussion during one world cup prior to 2011 (my current email stores only go back to 2011 and I can't find it) - so possibly 2006 or 2010 and was informed that I could NOT use images of the official FIFA logo or official FIFA world cup. There was no discussion about use of words.

Since then my World Cup Betting Tips section uses a photo of a kids toy cup that I bought instead that seems to work OK with punters in identifying the World Cup section - they get what it is meant to be (although probably not why).



IF anyone wants the image feel free to take it - just give us a link somewhere on your site to our World Cup page please.
- > https://www.goonersguide.com/world-cup-football.php

[Triple7]

The guys on the top at FIFA are smoking some special weed. They can't control what is being said or written on a platform as large as the internet. If the rules apply; that will probably be for the most visible web properties, mostly for the show and to target specific licensed operators and their affiliates.

Yes and no.

They cannot controle the whole internet, that's for sure.

But... I've once had a discussion with a certain park, about some famous ducks and mouses, I was not able to mention even the name of that company, leave alone in combination with Paris.

I wasn't ranking on their keywords. It's not this kind of organizations you want to find yourself with in a legal battle.

[TheBoyMitchell]

I cant access the link that Vardan put up, but I can understand the FIFA stance if we were talking about PPC or Brand bidding to get traffic, but not for an organic description on a website.

I've written about 100 pages of content so far, and I'm not going to change it

[vardan]

I cant access the link...

Please copy the link without xxx and it will redirect to FIFA's page. This one will take to RP's post about their own rules: xxxhttps://bit.ly/2sfT9a2.

[xecutable]

I had a discussion during one world cup prior to 2011 (my current email stores only go back to 2011 and I can't find it) - so possibly 2006 or 2010 and was informed that I could NOT use images of the official FIFA logo or official FIFA world cup. There was no discussion about use of words.

Since then my World Cup Betting Tips section uses a photo of a kids toy cup that I bought instead that seems to work OK with punters in identifying the World Cup section - they get what it is meant to be (although probably not why).



IF anyone wants the image feel free to take it - just give us a link somewhere on your site to our World Cup page please.
- > https://www.goonersguide.com/world-cup-football.php

I remember this, cause then I had a discussion about it with you . It was 2011. And it was all about images, there was nothing about words. This is from 2010 BBC

"Phrases "South Africa 2010", "Fifa World Cup" and even images of the trophy itself are protected under intellectual property laws"

Thing is in their guidelines this is stated as allowed: Editorial use: any legitimate editorialuse does NOT create an UnauthorisedAssociation.

In addition this too is allowed: General terms: A general football relatedbusiness name does NOTcreate an Unauthorised Association(provided it is not used together withtournament indicia, imagery orreference, or the name )

So as long you have editorial material and you have established a clear connection between your brand and the material and that you are NOT associated with FIFA you are fine.

P.S This is what I found on a forum:

"FIFA (Switzerland) registered a class 25 trademark for "World Cup" on 12th March 1999 which expires on 19th January 2020. The important bit it's a class 25 registration which applies to using the term "World Cup" on the following goods or services: Football boots, football shirts, football shorts, football socks & football clothing."

[PromoteCasino]

I agree with @TheBoyMitchell if you were bidding on terms and use of official logos etc... That would be a no no just like the brands we promote where we cannot use the brands in our ppc's.

But surely worded content is a positive thing for Fifa in spreading the word. But Fifa are only in it for one thing money.

[Cash Bonus]

Everything all boils down to money.

[vardan]

The internet is full of such articles and images in different niches, from sports to construction, I can't imagine how they are planing to control all these mediums.

Quite hard work has been done and will be done yet, may be I will change a few images, but not the terms. If some programs aren't happy with that, I will just contact them and remove their brand from that specific pages.

[TheBoyMitchell]

I've had a read through of both sets of regulations, and from what I can understand, FIFA are protecting their property by ensuring as much as possible that companies or brands that have not paid for sponsorship cannot associate themselves in such a way that a person might reasonably think the company or brand is an official sponsor - this is completely reasonable.

In the case of Royal Panda, their t&c's state - "While promoting Royal Panda during WC 2018, you cannot use the words ‘World Cup’, ‘FIFA World Cup’ or ‘Russia 2018’ or any permutation of those words. It’s also not legal to use:

• Official FIFA World Cup 2018 logos
• Images of the World Cup
• Trademarked images of players, teams or stadium"

This is to safeguard Royal Panda. If an affiliate website alludes to Royal Panda being a sponsor of the Word Cup then Royal Panda would be in trouble for "passing itself" off as an official sponsor - even if an Affiliate site not associated with Royal Panda makes the suggestion on its website. Again, this is fair enough, and after all the court cases in the last 6-9 months where bookmakers got fined for affiliates making incorrect claims, it seems a sensible thing to do.

So, writing about the World Cup and then saying something along the lines of "Click here to get £50 of free bets with "x brand - the World Cups favourite bookmaker" would be a No, as it could be assumed that a user would think that "x brand" was an official sponsor when they are not. However writing about the World Cup and then saying "click here to see the latest odds from x brand" would be OK, as there is no insinuation that x brand is a sponsor.

Making your own banners that merge a bookmaker with images of the World Cup etc would also be a No.

Thats how I'm reading it anyway. The brands are protecting themselves from Affiliates passing the brand off as an official sponsor when they are not, but I feel that writing content and inserting links as long as it is clear that the links are not promoted as an official sponsor then you should be OK.

[Sherlock]

I am curious whether the increased bot action mentioned by Gooner has something to do with all of this.

Rather than going into the details what is and what hopefully is not problematic would be the find out the IPs of robots of the one company FIFA hired for crawling the internet.

[golfbettingsystem]

So we’re saying there’ll be no World Cup banners, no World Cup landing pages, odds comparison sites can’t refer to the markets as the World Cup etc - yet every other affiliate manager communication recently has been ‘what are your world cup plans?’ - can’t see this being adhered to in any way whatsoever.

[TheBoyMitchell]

It's almost like you didn't read the thread. Or my post.

[TheGooner]

I am curious whether the increased bot action mentioned by Gooner has something to do with all of this.

Rather than going into the details what is and what hopefully is not problematic would be the find out the IPs of robots of the one company FIFA hired for crawling the internet.

Very good point. There is certainly plenty of new bots out there - and you do wonder if they are all scaping content or searching for emails to spam - it would make sense that bots are also checking copyrights.

I could easily see where FIFA have hired a company to start searching for breaches of protocol.