FIFA Head of Media Hans Hultman led the AIPS e-College Young Reporters into the intricate world of media operations at major football tournaments via Zoom.
The Swede, who boasts vast experience with the Swedish football association, with UEFA and now with FIFA, offered an insight into the structure and responsibilities of the world governing body’s communications department, as well as the work to ensure journalists can operate in the best possible working conditions.
FIFA MEDIA The FIFA media department, headed by Hultman, is one of three sub-divisions in the communications department with a staff of 12 who all have a background in media work. They are divided into media operations and media relations. The media operations teamwork with all the different competitions and events, the media relations team deal with media queries received from all over the world.
Hultman said: “We are trying our best to provide media all over the world with the best possible services whether you’re at home asking questions or at one of our tournaments. Of course, now, the situation is a little bit different for us in terms of the fact that we don’t have any live football going on, but from the point of FIFA’s media department, I think we have been trying to provide media with a lot of things to write about in this difficult situation.”
PRESS CARD FIFA has approximately 35,000 journalists registered in its media channel and 56,000 email addresses. The media department issues information through media releases, advisories, briefings and digital publications on a regular basis. The team also work on competition accreditations.
Hultman emphasized that possessing a bona fide press card is one of the requirements to be accepted in the FIFA media channel.
He said: “You need to be a regular working journalist in an organization, or as a freelancer, preferably with a press card from your local sportswriters’ organization or journalists union in some countries. We want everyone also to be able to show an AIPS card obviously and that is important. Just for you to be sure we check each and every registration and rejecting many on a regular basis as well.”
PLANNING The operation side involves intense planning to provide high-level service for working journalists.
Hultman said: “We create a plan for each and every competition depending on where it is and depending on the expectations, but we’re always trying to provide the same level of services.”
Plans for Russia 2018 began in 2013 and preparations for Qatar 2022 began two years ago. In Russia, the media centres in different stadiums working independently but that may not be the case with Qatar.
“One thing we have been looking at is to have a main media centre that could act as a hub for the eight stadiums,” Hultman said.
FOCUS ON FOOTBALL In 2018, the press facilities of the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 was adjudged the best by the members of the international media and this was thanks to Hultman and his team. The tournament began amid negative headlines about doping, homophobia, hooliganism and corruption but at the end, “we had a lot of nice feedback,” Hultman said. “That is not only because of what we were doing, it was also because of what the Russians were doing – they put on a fantastic show.”
He explained that apart from engaging with fans via Fifa.com and the FIFA social media platforms, his department always maintained a focus on the football; some 80pc of the media agreed, in a post-event survey, that Russia 2018 really focused on football.
FOOTBALL EQUALITY Turning to the FIFA Women’s World Cup, Hultman revealed that only two persons from the media department were at Canada 2015, but a full team was present in France 2019.
He said: “We had complete different setup between Canada and France, so that shows a little bit about, first of all, the importance of the women’s World Cup and secondly the importance that FIFA is putting into the Women’s World Cup not only from a gender equality point of view but also from a football equality point of view.”
VISA ISSUES One key lesson, Hultman pointed out from the experience in France was in the area of visa processing
“Unfortunately, some journalists from African countries, in particular, had their applications rejected or received their visas so late that they couldn’t even book a flight for decent prices.
“That is something that we find very unfortunate as well because we want everyone to be able to come but we are in the hands of the local authorities when it comes to these areas.”
Question and answer:
How do you deal, from a corporate perspective, with a crisis situation?
We have what we call issue and crisis management, first of all, and issue and crisis communication, because communication comes in as one part of the management and we do have a catalogue of various incidents that we have been through in the past and we hope not to see, but we also trying to prepare and in principle, we are building that that catalogue in different sectors based on who is responsible for the communication. Depending on the severity of the incident, if it really affects let’s say fans or even players or whoever staff member, volunteers – if it comes into the football part of it – then we have a hierarchy where we have people lined up for comments depending on the severity of the event. Colin Smith who is the chief of tournaments and events, for example, and then all the way up to the secretary-general, the deputies, and then the FIFA president. In a really difficult case, we would probably like the FIFA president to have a statement.
What is the internal policy when it comes to communicating with the media and you have to decide what is on the record and what is off the record?
This is on a case-by-case basis and it depends on what kind of information we are sharing, and how confidential it is. How much can we share and what can we do with it? So it’s on a case-by-case basis that sometimes we can see that the full knowledge is not within an article, for example, then it’s easy to explain or to fill in some areas to get the journalist to understand more why a certain decision has been taken or what we are doing in a certain topic or matter that we are discussing so I cannot say that we have a clear policy on or off the record. It’s more about common sense.
The media is growing rapidly and there are many YouTube channels and bloggers who have an audience of millions. So can they be accredited to big football events?
That’s an important stakeholder group for FIFA from a communications point of view, at the same time from our point of view in the media department, we are focusing on the journalists that are working as professional journalists and mainly with traditional media. We invited influencers to the World Cup draw we had in Moscow, the final draw in December 2017, which was quite successful, but we kept them in a separate area, a little bit as we do also in the mixed zone between written press and TV and radio. So we had the influencers in separate areas from a media point of view. They did not have access to the media centre, but they could still report in a proper way from the events we had and this is something we need to look into also for Qatar because as I said, it’s an important part from the communications point of view, but also difficult to handle in terms of competing with traditional media.
Is there may be the possibility for young journalists to be accredited for the FIFA World Cup in Qatar and of course all the other tournaments you organize?
For the other tournaments it’s easier because, first of all, the pressure is not as high for us. We can be a bit more generous and we are taking the decisions ourselves. For the men’s World Cup, we have a system with a quota that is given to each and every association and then they deal with it because we think that they know their journalists better than we do, which means that for Qatar, I cannot guarantee anything. But for the other competitions, we are very generous. There are very few times that we reject accreditations for youth competitions.
Working as a media officer of an organization such as UEFA and FIFA, how do you feel when the organization you work for does something wrong but you have to patch it up by maybe releasing a statement to safeguard your organization’s reputation?
It’s a mixed feeling sometimes, of course, depending on what has happened, but I think we have to be professional. We have to try to find out the facts, we have to try to assist and help as much as we can regardless of what has been happening. I think keeping the head cool is the most important thing and trying to get the proper information in a good way.
Do you think that the quota system with the local associations works with respect to freelancers?
I can say 90pc yes it works. I think most of the associations have a very proper way of dealing with it. We had some cases over the years where we know that the associations may have not been taking freelancers into consideration, they have given space to some of the newspapers instead, and in some cases, we from the FIFA side made exceptions and added a quota to a country to be dedicated to a freelance journalist.
FIFA extended the broadcasting rights for, for example, Fox until 2026, without really opening up the bidding process, as far as I know, so how do you explain this to journalists?
We do have an internal communication on that one. When we receive a question from the media regarding such a matter, first of all, we keep our own chief officer-involved and informed and then we also speak to the counterparts like in the commercial division, which is now also taking care of TV matters, and then try to get a proper explanation to how things have been done before we respond.
How does a media officer handle the case of a footballer being racially abused?
First of all, that is on the level where we have a match commissioner, a match delegate and of course the referee is involved, so that has to be evaluated within the reports of the match. We instruct our FIFA media officers in their knowledge about the process, how it works, and then to be there and to be able to confirm any messages that we would have, let’s say, from headquarters. So that is not so difficult in that case. It’s just mainly to refer to the fact that it goes into a match report and it has to be evaluated and then also go through other different entities and other different sources before it comes out.
When you are press officer of a team and something controversial happens, how do you deal with that negative attention?
I think, first of all, keep the head cool and not over-react immediately. Try to evaluate the situation, evaluate how damaging this is for me, or for the team, or for anyone. That’s the first thing. Secondly, try to divert, if possible. Find something positive. Let’s say, look at the bright side of life to any of those situations if that can be done. And if you’re working with a team keep calmness to tell the players that ‘this is something that you don’t need to bother about, you should focus only on what you’re doing on the pitch’ and then try to mitigate a little bit the reactions.
