What the World Cup can teach us about crisis communications

Football teams spend millions preparing for major tournaments. But when reputational crises strike, communications teams often face the biggest test, and the lessons extend far beyond sport.

By Richard Morgan Evans

The World Cup is one of the greatest shows in sport, and I watch every one with great intent. Increasingly though, I find myself not just examining what I see on the pitch, but off it. Not just the football. The PR.

This summer’s tournament will be no different. 48 nations, a month of relentless global scrutiny, and organisations that have spent millions preparing their teams for the game. However, what happens around the game often slips through the cracks.

For communication professionals, it presents an opportunity to watch a live case study into how to handle a crisis. The mistakes that come, and they inevitably do, are the same ones we see in the organisations we advise, just played out in front of a global audience of billions.

Here is what I will be watching for, and what I think it should make us ask about our own clients.

Have they actually run the fire drill?

Our industry talks constantly about crisis preparedness. Scenario planning, reputational audit, and stakeholder mapping are all cornerstones of the communications vocabulary. But there is a significant difference between a plan that exists on paper and one that works under pressure. That difference is rehearsal.

When a crisis breaks, the first thing to look for will be whether anyone has clearly been in that room before and whether a response feels practised or improvised. Most will be improvised. The question for us as PR professionals is whether the clients we advise could say anything different.

Who have they put in front of the camera?

Gareth Southgate was a natural media operator, yet the FA still managed to put him in an impossible position: condemning the racist abuse directed at his players while still trying to process a crushing penalty shootout defeat.

We see this constantly play out outside of football. Perhaps in a CEO who faces the press before all the facts are established, or in a founder made to apologise for something caused by a junior member of the team. The instinct to field the most senior spokesperson is understandable, but almost always unwise. One of the most valuable pieces of advice we can give is to have this conversation before crisis sets in.

Are they treating people as media channels?

When the FA stated the abuse directed at Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho, it reached a fraction of the audience that a single social media post from any of those three would have done. The official channel struggled to match the reach of the individuals' own platforms.

This plays out identically in corporate communications. The organisations that handle crises best understand that their people are media channels in their own right, with audiences that can dwarf the reach of any press office. An uncoordinated response across these channels is worse than no response at all.

Who else is in the room that nobody is talking to?

When a crisis breaks out, the pull toward public opinion is instinctive – it is the loudest pressure. But in my experience, the most lasting damage is rarely done there.

The collapse of the European Super League in 2021 demonstrates this point. The clubs behind the project focused almost exclusively on explaining their plans to investors, while failing to bring supporters, players, managers and governing bodies with them. Within 48 hours, public opposition had become impossible to ignore, sponsors came under pressure, and clubs began withdrawing. It was a reminder that effective crisis communications requires understanding that every stakeholder experiences the same event differently, and each needs a tailored response.

When does the silence end?

Football’s default crisis response is to say nothing and hope that the media moves on. It is a playbook that is recognisable across a range of non-sporting clients. Sometimes it works – other times, the silence becomes the story.

The organisations that handle this best have an agreed threshold for speaking out before the crisis arrives, not once it has begun. This is a discussion to have with every client before crises run out of control, not once they have done.

The real question

The World Cup will produce reputational emergencies this summer. As communications professionals, we will watch them unfold in real time, wincing at the avoidable mistakes and missed opportunities.

But football holds up a mirror. The gaps it exposes between preparation and readiness, and instinct and strategy, are gaps we should always be looking out for in our client relationships. The question is not whether the teams are ready. It is whether we have done enough to make sure our clients are.

Richard Morgan Evans is chief executive and co-founder of London-based strategic communications consultancy Sapience Communications. A former journalist whose career spanned the Sunday Mirror, the Daily Express, and The Economist, Richard brings an editorial perspective to communications strategy and reputation management. Sapience has advised on several high-profile sports communications campaigns, including work for the Professional Cricketers Association, Millwall FC, and Thierry Henry.