“The multi-cornered scandal of a round ball”. This heading was written by Ertugrul Ozkok. He discussed in detail what was happening at independent FIFA in his column, in Hurriyet. Ozkok was talking about Chuck Blazer.[1] You will remember Chuck Blazer as someone who is known for the way he spends his money more than the way he earns it, and who once lobbied for Turkey in the US Congress.
As you know, they ask “What is your opinion of the deceased?” at funerals. If this question was asked about Chuck Blazer, the answer would be “He was a man who had two flats in Trump Tower, in New York – an $18000-per-month unit that he lived in and an adjoining $6000-per-month retreat used for making his cats comfortable.” The investigation which is conducted in the light of the information given by Blazer, who “accepted working as an FBI informant” after the FBI agents had forced him into a corner for his doings at FIFA a few years ago, is now focused on Sepp Blatter, who has been elected as FIFA president for five terms in a row. Not being able to stand the pressure, Blatter had to make a decision to resign even before he could warm his seat.
What is happening at FIFA is not new. The Washington Post’s heading, FIFA’s Ugly Stains on the Beautiful Game, explains very clearly the developments published in the section entitled The Post’s View on May 27th, 2015. During the developments after Sepp Blatter was re-elected as FIFA president for a fifth term, (He is under criminal investigation by Swiss authorities as of September 2015) 14 senior FIFA executives were arrested. Allegations of $150 million bribery are just the tip of the iceberg. FIFA is not a very “reputable” brand because of the bribery, corruption and fraud issues that Havalange, the FIFA president before Blatter, was also involved with.
That may be why Financial Times headline read “FIFA – A Tarnished Brand” in the light of the latest developments.
It may have been the last straw when the FIFA’s own ethics committee “buried” its report which would be evidence of the goings-on. Since Michael Garcia, who prepared the report, resigned in protest against this unbelievable behaviour of the FIFA management, the spotlight has already been turned on this “neither-fish-nor-fowl” organisation which plays with billions of dollars. It is neither fish nor fowl since it is not a public institution, a private company, a non-governmental organisation, a professional organisation or a “business angel” because of its sports investments. However, it is a bit of all these things!
We are not interested in the lega
l dimension or the technical processes of this issue. We are interested in the way that the top executive, the ambassador of this brand, has resisted assuming ethical behaviour and “has not resigned” although an international establishment has been facing these kinds of allegations. He ultimately resigned, but this resignation was not due to “ethical” reasons. If we are talking about ethics, we must admit that Sepp Blatter, who is being examined closely, had the last word on it: “You can’t just ask people to behave ethically!” And he is one of those people!
What kinds of attitudes will be assumed by the sponsors that keep FIFA alive towards these developments is another issue. Sponsors such as Coca Cola, McDonalds, Adidas, Hyundai and Anheuser-Busch announced that they were monitoring the developments closely. However, the FIFA crisis is not so simple as to make the sponsors step aside and settle for observing the developments. This is because these global brands might be spattered with mud unless they act in a proactive manner: “What if they are in this, too?” In fact, we cannot deny that Adidas and Nike are already under a cloud!
An Ethics Investigation of Three Theatre Tickets
A report on the theatre invitations that were sent to the chief constables in Denmark was lost between the lines although I thought it was more important than the FIFA scandal. According to the report, the Ministry of Justice brought a prosecution against three chief constables who accepted free theatre and concert tickets.[2] Prof. Claus Haagen Jensen of Copenhagen Business School, who was consulted about the subject, said that the chief constables had lost their “independence” by accepting free theatre tickets. A similar incident occurred in Sweden about ten years ago. TeliaSonera invited the chief constable of Stockholm and his wife to a theatre event, to which their vendors were invited with their partners as part of their corporate campaign. The chief constable, who was pleased with the invitation, found out that the Ministry of Justice brought a prosecution against him after he had gone to that event with his wife. This issue, which had kept Sweden occupied for weeks, extended until it involved the stockholders who invested the investors’ money in “the companies which took the code of ethics seriously” in the name of “ethical funds”. The ethical funds had complained to various stock markets about TeliaSonera’s behaviour!
After all, we are talking about theatre tickets!
Irresponsible Companies, Irresponsible Brands!
I attended an international meeting in Amsterdam in May 2015. The meeting was entitled “Brand and Reputation”. The attendees, who were few in number, were a group of senior executives of the leading companies in the global market. Brand and reputation were outlined well. However, the subjects which should actually be brought up cannot be brought up at these kinds of meetings either due to a time limit or “kindness”.
For instance, at these kinds of meetings where brand and reputation are discussed, the executives of “the most loved, the most reputable, the most popular, the most sustainable, the most socially-responsible, the most …, the most …, the most…” companies always come up and talk about their “successes” from their points of view. These successes are always questionable, because we all know that there are some basic ethical problems “behind” them.
For instance, we talked about FIFA. FIFA President Sepp Blatter turned FIFA from a one-million-dollar organisation into a six-million dollar organisation. Isn‘t this a real success? But how can this be shown as a success when there are bribery and corruption behind it?
UK ENGLAND LONDON 23JUN14 – Army of Lego people.
jre/Photo by Jiri Rezac © Jiri Rezac
Lego, which is one of the most beautiful and the cutest brands in the world and which is a part of our lives, was seriously boycotted by consumers last year. Moreover, they could not manage the situation well. They have finally come through it, but their brand and, of course, their reputation have been damaged a lot.
This is what happened: Shell, which could not play any games in its industry and which was not able to seem “cute” to consumers, managed to put petrol stations among Lego toys through a clever offer.[3] Lego accepted the offer without considering the consumers’ reactions to such a venture by Shell, which was shown as a pioneer of the environmental destruction in the North Pole. Thus, they were actually tricked by a “Shell game”!
Now, was this campaign a “success” both for Lego and Shell? All in all, even if it was a decision long overdue, Lego had to end its cooperation with Shell, which had lasted for more than 50 years, following a million signatures collected from consumers.
I would frankly like to see people discuss every aspect of this cooperation at such a meeting.
I see that success stories about Nestlé products are told at some conferences, congresses etc. Then how come Nestlé emerges as the most boycotted brand by consumers, non-governmental organisations and investors in the marketing history?[4] I think it would be for everyone’s benefit if Nestlé executives and boycotters discussed this issue at the same platform, but I have not seen it happen so far.
Some non-governmental organisations announce the names of some companies as “the most irresponsible companies / brands”.[5] They can influence regulators, investment funds, political institutions like the European Union, and especially local consumer associations with their announcements. Don’t you think how “successfully” and “efficiently” a brand and its reputation are managed – seriously or not – is related to how the brand can deal with these kinds of organisations?
When managing their reputation, brand
s generally hide behind the idea “that they act in accordance with the law and that they have very serious processes about this subject.” However, what we call ethics begins where laws and regulations end. Acting in accordance with the law is not a big deal anyway! Everyone knows what happens if you do not act in accordance with the law.
However, understanding “wha
t decision is made for whose benefit when you are torn between your conscience and your wallet” is no longer a utopia. The company’s benefit or the public’s benefit?
That was the basic problem ignored by the hydroelectric power plant projects in Turkey. And these projects cost their owners a lot of money both in terms of timing and costs, and more importantly, in terms of tarnished brands formed by the public’s reaction. In other words, they lost both their conscience and their wallets! Because they considered the projects only as electricity production income with state subsidies to be earned from dam construction instead of considering the local people’s expectations, the sustainability of nature and the life cycle of economic efficiency. In other words, they forgot to mix “mortar of ethics” for the foundation of dam construction.
Do Banks rob University Students of their Future?
Another current technical question which should be discussed: Should banks give a loan to university students so that they can meet their higher education expenses?
Banks, by their very nature, are commercial enterprises which are based on a system for taking out / giving a loan, aren’t they? Therefore, the answer to the question may of course be: “What’s the big deal? Of course they can give a loan.”
All right.
The question behind it is: “Is it ethical for banks to give a loan to university students so that they can meet their higher education expenses?”
If your answer was “It is ethical”, I would recomm
end you to look at the current situation in the USA. When young people finish university, they start a new life hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt knowing they will not be able to pay this debt in any way their entire life. Who would be responsible for the problems that these people could cause in social life?
According to The Economist’s report, the amount of loan given to students in 2014 exceeded $1.2 trillion. 7 million people who took out a loan stated that they would not be able to repay it. How can anyone guarantee that these 7 million (for now) young people, who are ready to do “anything” in despair since they have fallen into a debt spiral, will not harm you at your doorstep anywhere in the world?
Similarly, our banks whose employees distribute credit cards to everyone regardless of their levels of income at the plastic stalls that they put in the middle of the streets actually shot themselves in the foot, didn’t they? I wonder what the people who give these cards think when they see the third page news reporting that someone tried to pay his credit card debt by borrowing cash from another credit card and resorted to committing suicide.
According to the findings in Turkey in June 2014, the amount of mortgage that could not be repaid increased up to TRL 1.2 billion in the last three years. Shouldn’t an ethics investigation be conducted to find out what is happening behind this scene?
There is no need to rewind the film! The global economic system does not allow for decorative objects like ethics which involves sentimentalism and which is fondly welcome! It perceives “money” as “value” instead of ethics and manages success in a “monetary” system. Even if we behave really ethically and we go to sleep with peace of mind at night, this situation does not have any meaning other than “decorative liking”. “Money”, implicitly defined “share value”, does not even come close to flirting with “ethics”! The system pulls all of us into its spiral at some other point.
Actually, the stones which came away after the global economic recession in 2008 have not been replaced yet. Economies remain standing, even if unstably, thanks to the new credit money introduced by the central banks. However, we see that one of the current values, which are defined as “transparency, responsibility, fairness and accountability”, is starting to stand out: accountability!
George Monbiot
You have probably seen what accountability is like if you follow George Monbiot, the Guardian columnist.[6] Consistent accountability becomes meaningful through the transparency principle. Monbiot gives an account of his assets to his readers 365 days a year on the basis of this principle. You can find anything from the resources that constitute his annual income and how it is constituted to hospitality, travelling and accommodation expenses on his website. He, of course, built his transparency on some principles. So, you cannot give him a gift which is worth tens of thousands of pounds!
George Monbiot says “I believe that everyone who steps into public life should be obliged to show on whose behalf they are speaking.” He continues “who is paying them, and how much. I would like to see journalists, like MPs, become subject to a mandatory register of interests. But until that time I hope to encourage other journalists to declare the sources of their income voluntarily – by declaring mine.”
You can find information as detailed as the person who gave him a book as a gift and the price of this book on George Monbiot’s website, in the section entitled “Registry of Interests”.
It seems like ethics investigations have to bring up the issue of “accountability” more in the coming years as it will be the focus of these investigations. Damage to reputation ranked first on the list of ten most important risks in the business world, in a survey conducted in the USA. Therefore, the first step in managing this risk can be interpreted as getting a pass in accountability in the eyes of your social partners.[7]
It seems as if reputation will arise from such essence.
[1] http://sosyal.hurriyet.com.tr/yazar/ertugrul-ozkok_10/ya-isbirligi-yaparsin-ya-kelepceyi-takariz_29159452?__hrp__
[2] http://sosyal.hurriyet.com.tr/yazar/ertugrul-ozkok_10/ya-isbirligi-yaparsin-ya-kelepceyi-takariz_29159452?__hrp__
[3] http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/press-releases/lego-ends-50-year-link-shell-after-one-million-people-respond-save-arctic-campaign-20141009
[4] http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/boycotts/boycottslist/nestleboycottprofile.aspx
[5] http://dailycaller.com/2015/01/24/public-eye-list-chevron-as-the-most-irresponsible-company/
[6] http://www.monbiot.com/registry-of-interests/
[7] http://www.reputationxchange.com/reputation-needs-to-be-strong-and-stronger/
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