Grassroots organizers launched an international boycott of Budweiser and Anheuser-Busch InBev products to protest their support of FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) and its decision to award the 2018 World Cup to Russia. The boycott is part of a broader protest against “Vladimir Putin and Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and its orchestrating of violent terrorist activities across Eastern and Southern Ukraine.”
The 2018 World Cup was awarded to Russia by FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), the international governing body of the sport of football. The campaign launched by United with Ukraine includes a comprehensive website www.BoycottPutinNow.com which includes an informative online video to help highlight the hypocrisy of FIFA and its major corporate partners. The video is available on the website in 12 different languages to help facilitate global awareness.
“The corporate mantra of Anheuser-Busch InBev is “Bringing People Together for a Better World” which goes completely against affiliating itself with Russia’s hosting of the World Cup and Vladimir Putin’s army of war mongers,” said Eugene Melnyk, Chairman of the Campaign Advisory Committee for United with Ukraine. “Major international sporting events such as the Olympics or FIFA’s World Cup serve as powerful forces of global unity and peace, not conflict and war. To allow Russia to host the World Cup would fundamentally undermine the spirit of international sport and the stated core principles of every corporate sponsor who so far has chosen to align itself with such an irresponsible decision. We are asking FIFA’s major partners to take a firm principled stand and demand FIFA immediately re-assign the 2018 World Cup to a more deserving nation.”
The FIFA World Cup is one of the most prestigious sporting events in the world. It is broadcast in more than 200 countries where the championship match will be watched by more than 700 million people. It is an event of epic proportions that will undeservingly place Putin and Russia front and center on football’s world stage in 2018.
United with Ukraine and its “Boycott Putin Now” Campaign calls upon FIFA to immediately revoke the 2018 World Cup hosting rights from the Russian Federation. Until such a decision is made by FIFA, United with Ukraine will continue to work to persuade significant corporate sponsors to withdraw their brands and financial support of the 2018 World Cup.
It is the intent of United with Ukraine to systematically boycott each of the nine major corporate partners of FIFA’s 2018 World Cup for choosing to align themselves and their brands to Putin and Russia’s terrorist campaign against a defenseless nation such as
