FIFA will meet in Zurich on Wednesday to discuss the billion dollars it was hoping to make from marketing company ISMM and its subsidiary ISL until they went bankrupt last week.
The company is fighting the liquidation procedure but FIFA wants to draw up a contingency plan of action regardless of the outcome.
ISMM and ISL held the marketing rights to the 2002 and 2006 World Cups as well as the non-European rights to screen those events. But shortly after encountering cash-flow difficulties, FIFA itself announced the company was being put into liquidation.
ISL's 2002 World Cup TV deal, like Leo Kirch's who owns the European rights, was to have given FIFA $382 million and the 2006 deal was around 10 per cent higher. ISL's 2006 marketing deal on its own was worth $235 million too.
Though FIFA has been forced to borrow $180 million from the Credit Suisse First Boston bank to cover an initial ISL payment short-fall, it has already made assurances that the Korea-Japan 2002 World Cup is in no danger.
ISL also had a $500-million 15-year deal with Brazilian football club Flamengo, a six-year deal to screen Chinese football, a $1.2 billion 10-year deal to screen tennis' nine top tournaments and a deal with United States CART racing.
Low returns on its CART and Chinese and Brazilian football investments reportedly hamstrung the company.
Also at the meeting FIFA will discuss the events at Ellis park Johannesburg where 43 people were crushed to death at a South African football match on April 11th.
AFP