Ashraf Mufareh has been forced to admit OnPassive’s “FIFA sponsorship” is just a cable tv ad campaign.
Sponsorship marketing began after Mufareh told affiliates OnPassive was a FIFA World Cup 2022 sponsor last month.
On September 14th OnPassive released a Fifa World Cup 2022 sponsorship promo video.
Owing to it not being a World Cup sponsor, OnPassive is believed to have received a cease and desist from FIFA shortly thereafter. This prompted OnPassive to pull the video earlier this week.
Presumably under threat of legal retaliation, Mufareh was forced to admit it didn’t have permission to use FIFA’s logo or World Cup branding.
Official FIFA World Cup sponsors are of course allowed to use FIFA’s intellectual property and World Cup branding in their marketing.
In the last 24 hours OnPassive has put together a new video, in which there is no direct mention of FIFA or the Qatar 2022 World Cup:
As per Mufareh’s crisis meeting yesterday, OnPassive now correctly identifies itself as an advertiser on beIN Sports.
beIN Sports is a Qatari “global network of sports channels”. Outside of representing it has purchased advertising on beIN, there is no business relationship between beIN Sports and OnPassive.
At time of publication OnPassive has yet to release their new beIN Sports advertising promo on their official YouTube channel.