Simon King is brought in as Group Manager Government Relations & Public Affairs

I am not a regular soccer fan - I prefer association football's rougher cousin, rugby football. But I did enjoy the recent World Cup and I have been captivated by the drama involving FIFA President Gianni Infantino during and since the event.

Infantino's now-abandoned plans to launch 'Football Forward Enterprise' have left FIFA facing a tournament boycott from UEFA, the powerful group of European football associations, and him fighting for survival as FIFA's leader.

He may yet weather the storm. But Infantino's travails offer valuable lessons for communicators advising on transactions or strategic changes that are likely to be sensitive or controversial.

In particular, this story reinforces:

• The value of using data to anticipate and prepare for stakeholder reactions;

• How essential it is to have reputational advisors involved in strategic decision-making;

• The reality that there is rarely a boundary between the private and the public in today’s information ecosystem; and

• The critical importance of building positive relationships within that ecosystem before your big reveal (dare I say keeping them onside?).

To recap the story for those who have not been following:

• Football Forward Enterprise would have been a new commercial subsidiary spun out of FIFA to house all of the organisation's commercial activities - tournaments, broadcasting rights, sponsorships ticketing, and hospitality - separating that revenue-generating business from FIFA's non-profit governance side.

• The plan was for private investors to take a roughly 20 per cent equity stake in FFE, based on a $20 billion valuation of the entity, raising about $4.2 billion in fresh capital. A firm founded by Joshua Kushner - brother of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law - was reported to have been lined up as the anchor investor.

• According to reports on the proposal, each of FIFA's 211 member associations was to get $20 million upfront, on top of existing FIFA Forward development payments, which already run to about $10 million over four years.

• Whistleblowers told The Times in the UK that Infantino had targeted a base salary of some $30 million plus bonuses to lead the new commercial entity - a huge jump from the CHF4.8 million that FIFA currently pays its President.

While the plan has been dropped and FIFA has apologised for the way it was handled, global football's governing body continues to be roiled by the fallout.

So what can companies, investors, and financial advisors learn from all this?

Data enables better decisions

First of all, any organisation should use data as well as its judgment to understand stakeholder priorities before undertaking a high-stakes strategic transaction. Humanity's colossal digital footprint allows us to make detailed and reliable inferences about how a given group of people will react to a given development. Gathering and analysing this intelligence is an essential - and discreet - first step in any strategic process.

At Ashbury, we use a range of different tools to source and then triangulate data that guides advice to clients on potentially sensitive developments:

• AI-powered synthetic personas give us candid and realistic feedback on the likely reception from a given audience demographic to proposed developments and messaging.

• Our partner InferenceCloud’s Strategy Explorer tool crunches petabytes of data to give us insights into the relative relevance of selected topics to a certain audience in a certain context.

• And a new tool we are developing - Reputational Impact Analysis - models the impact of different interventions (such as public statements) on reactions from a range of stakeholders as well as the "half-life" of any anticipated reputational fallout.

When you can look across multiple data-driven sentiment indicators, it's not hard to identify where the greatest audience sensitivities - and reputational risks - exist. With the modern data tools that are available, there is no excuse for fundamentally misreading how an audience will react or for failing to have planned how to influence that reaction.

This kind of analysis should be part of the transaction process, not an afterthought.

Reputation specialists need to be decision-makers

Armed with AI-enabled data analysis, communications advisors can make highly defensible, evidence-based recommendations to management and boards on how to proceed. The leadership of organisations should value this input. There is no point in having capable reputation specialists equipped with hard data if they do not have influence when it comes to strategic decision-making.

Their involvement should also extend well beyond simply being briefed on what is going to happen and then going off to develop the best possible messaging for landing the news. As the company's reputational stewards and risk managers, empowered communications heads and advisors should also have a voice in determining the organisation’s strategy and the course of any transactions that it contemplates.

It's a safe bet that any experienced communicator given the opportunity to advise Gianni Infantino on FFE would have made clear that moving ahead with the contemplated plan would have carried significant reputational risk - and argued that this course of action should be reconsidered.

Clearly, it would have been better for Infantino, FIFA, and football if that had happened - and for that advice to have been taken. Smart organisations understand the need to manage reputational risk and bring their specialists into decision-making - but the FIFA saga demonstrates that this practice is still not universal.

The risk of failing to listen to reputational experts is real. No-one could argue that FIFA has not been severely damaged by recent developments. Of course, FIFA is a governing body without listed shares. But another transaction reported to have been considered in recent times does help to quantify the risk of misreading stakeholders.

UK drugmaker AstraZeneca's shares dropped by 9 per cent when the Financial Times reported that it was in talks about a merger with Bristol Myers Squibb. Investors didn't like the idea and neither, reportedly, did the British government. Sources are now making clear that there will not be a deal. Once again, it appears, leaders didn't anticipate the reaction to their plans and had to change course.

Secrets and relationships

In the cases of FIFA and the mooted pharma merger, the players involved did not have control of the flow of information. The leaked to, and broken by, media. It's pointless to be indignant about this happening, or to assume that it can be avoided in the case of sensitive and high-profile transactions. No doubt some deals like this are discussed in private and the world is none the wiser. But the safer assumption is that leaks will happen - and that means organisations should prepare accordingly.

That obviously doesn't mean that organisations should be giving TV interviews about deals that haven't been announced yet. They can't do that. But it would be naive to think that the only way to exercise influence is out in the open - or when the leak has already happened.

Thoughtful and consistent background dialogue with reporters, analysts, and officials can help create more receptive conditions for a bold idea before its specific contours are ever known. Above all, this kind of dialogue can create better understanding of an organisation's broader long-term ambitions - and perhaps a degree of support for them.

Infantino, however, had been railing against his critics in the media after the World Cup - and just before the FFE news broke.

"You were so consumed by hate and criticism that you missed it all," he said.

"To those behind their pens and papers, behind their screens spreading hate and false rumours, I want to say that while you are sitting behind, we at FIFA are on the front lines organising, working hard, and delivering the best show in the world."

He's entitled to his view, of course. But this approach isn't exactly consistent with a constructive relationship with the media. After FFE was announced, FIFA member associations and employees also expressed surprise and opposition. The plan was "the project of one person," according to FIFA's then-Chief Operating Officer, Kevin Lamour, who said that the organisation itself had been "deceived." Lamour has since been sacked.

Whatever you think of the FFE plans, the story makes clear the value of doing the groundwork in building support for a new strategic direction, using data to anticipate reactions to your plans, preparing properly for a leak, and taking sound reputational advice.

So Infantino's own goal is a salutary lesson for any organisation contemplating a major strategic move. To borrow the language of the beautiful game, then, organisations that want to win should instead:

• Prepare the team with data ahead of the match;

• Have a plan B for when the original gameplan breaks down;

• Appoint and heed specialist coaches; and

• Spend time getting the fans, pundits, and officials on your side before the final.

Adam Harper founded Ashbury in January 2020. He was previously Head of Communications for Greater China at HSBC, where he was also Regional Head of Communications for Global Banking and Markets, Asia-Pacific.

Before joining HSBC, Adam was a Vice President in Credit Suisse's Asia-Pacific Corporate Communications team and Asia Editor at EuroWeek. He has worked in Asia since 2004 and is a graduate of the University of Cambridge.

Read more from our columnists in The Earned View

Georgia Neville has stepped up at the Royal Flying Doctor Service (Queensland section) as Manager - Communication and Stakeholder Relations. Based in Brisbane, she initially joined the team in 2022 as Content Officer. Prior to this, Georgia worked in-house within the government and sports sector, as well as agency-side at BCW Global.

The 2026 Oxford-GlobeScan Global Corporate Affairs Survey has found that geopolitical risk remains the leading short-term concern for Corporate Affairs practitioners, while AI and technology risks have risen sharply.

The seventh annual report captures the views of 294 senior Corporate Affairs professionals across 51 countries surveyed between February and March 2026. The survey covers issues and themes relevant to the Corporate Affairs function, including business risk, opportunity, ESG, corporate purpose, reputation, measurement and the future of the function.

Key findings from the 2026 Corporate Affairs survey

Geopolitical risk remains the top short-term risk

Geopolitical risk was cited by 76 per cent of respondents as the most significant short-term risk for global businesses over the next two years. The report says geopolitics has remained at the top of the list of perceived short-term risks for the past seven years. In 2026, it continued to dominate across every region.

The report also says the definition of this risk has evolved. What was previously a broad category is now being driven by more specific factors, including supply chain disruption, affordability, economic uncertainty, protectionism through tariffs, and energy costs.

The report describes this as a return to geoeconomics, where political aims are pursued through economic means.

AI and technology ranked second among short-term risks, cited by 44 per cent of respondents. This was up from 17 per cent in 2025.

Macroeconomic risks ranked third at 34 per cent, followed by climate change at 19 per cent. Data privacy and cyber risk, and the rise of populism / social divide, were each cited by 15 per cent of respondents.

AI is both a risk and an opportunity

Innovation, digitalisation, and AI were cited by 71 per cent of respondents as the greatest short-term opportunity for global companies. The report says this strong focus mirrors the sharp rise in perceived technology risk, suggesting that Corporate Affairs practitioners see the same forces as both disruptive and opportunity-generating.

Stakeholder engagement and building trust ranked second among short-term opportunities, cited by 23 per cent of respondents. Sustainable growth / strategies / ESG ranked third at 17 per cent.

The report also notes that upskilling and attracting talent grew by seven points, reaching 10 per cent in 2026. It says this reflects recognition that the benefits of innovation, AI, and digitalisation depend on human capability as well as technology.

The report also identifies preparedness for AI-driven misinformation as a weakness.

Only 18 per cent of respondents said their Corporate Affairs function is prepared to manage a deepfake or AI-driven misinformation incident. A further 30 per cent said they were somewhat prepared, while 43 per cent said they were not very prepared.

The report says significant gaps are seen across all regions and sectors. ICT and media entertainment reported the highest preparedness at 35 per cent, while consumer products / retail reported the lowest at eight per cent.

Governance has become the top ESG reputation risk

The report found that climate change mitigation and adaptation remain the top ESG issue for businesses, cited by 40 per cent of respondents. However, this was down from 51 per cent in 2025.

Governance and ethics ranked second at 34 per cent, up from 20 per cent in 2025. Regulation / policy uncertainty ranked third at 16 per cent.

The report says these shifts suggest a recalibration rather than a rejection of ESG concerns. Climate remains important, but governance-related issues linked to compliance, oversight, and regulatory exposure are becoming more pressing.

The report says governance is increasingly seen as the primary source of reputational vulnerability, encompassing ethics, accountability, transparency, disclosure, regulatory compliance, and the organisation’s ability to demonstrate effective oversight in volatile conditions.

Political advocacy remains part of the Corporate Affairs agenda

The report found that 33 per cent of practitioners said their organisation had increased its level of engagement in political advocacy in the past year.

This was down from 44 per cent in 2025, but the report says increased political advocacy remains most visible in Asia-Pacific at 52 per cent, North America at 39 per cent, and Europe at 36 per cent.

According to the report, similar geopolitical, regulatory, and societal forces can lead organisations either to increase advocacy or become more cautious. The difference depends on leadership appetite, strategy, and capability.

The report says Corporate Affairs plays a central enabling role in both cases, supporting leadership judgement, assessing external risk, shaping engagement strategies, and ensuring advocacy activity is coherent, credible, and aligned with corporate values and governance frameworks.

Purpose is under pressure, but expectations remain high

The report found that 82 per cent of respondents said their organisation has a stated corporate purpose in place. A further 11 per cent said their organisation is in the process of defining one.

However, only 32 per cent of respondents said discussions with their executive committee about corporate purpose had increased in the past year. This was down from 45 per cent in 2025.

The report says this suggests a cooling of senior-level focus, even as purpose remains formally embedded within organisations.

When respondents were asked about the biggest challenges in delivering purpose and corporate commitments to society, they most frequently cited political context, lack of an integrated plan to embed purpose, and organisational complexity.

The report also says more than a third of respondents believe societal expectations for purposeful organisational leadership will be significantly higher in three years’ time.

Corporate Affairs is still seen as creating business value

Almost 80 per cent of respondents said Corporate Affairs has a high impact on creating and protecting business value. The report notes that this has softened over the past two years.

The top three areas where Corporate Affairs is seen to create business value are:

• Effective forecasting in terms of risk, crisis management and political risk, cited by 32 percent of respondents;

• Protecting and promoting reputation / reputation management, cited by 30 percent;

• Building internal alignment behind strategic goals, cited by 21 percent.
  
  

Impact measurement remains limited

The report found that just under 49 per cent of Corporate Affairs practitioners formally measure the impact or success of their function.

Among those using metrics, the most common measures were:

• Media performance, cited by 75 per cent;

• Reputation / trust tracking, cited by 65 per cent;

• Stakeholder sentiment / engagement, cited by 65 per cent;

• Employee engagement / internal alignment indicators, cited by 60 per cent;

• Issues / crisis outcomes, cited by 50 per cent.

The report, however, says Corporate Affairs teams will need to broaden their intelligence scope beyond media monitoring and informal stakeholder conversations to include more structured assessments of reputation and trust.

What communicators need to know

Although Corporate Affairs is seen as a high-impact business function, it is facing clear pressure to evolve. Geopolitical risk remains the leading short-term concern, AI and technology are rising quickly as both a risk and an opportunity, and governance is now the top ESG reputation risk.

For communicators, the findings point to a stronger focus on business strategy, insight-led planning, AI readiness, reputation and trust measurement, and the skills needed to respond to a more complex operating environment.