Brand Finance’s Football 50 study, published recently, reflects eye-watering valuations for the world’s top football brands. Southampton has increased its brand valuation by 91% and Manchester United returns to the top of the 2015 table at pound;727m, making it the first “billion dollar” football brand. Much of a football brand’s valuation can be attributed to sponsorship, which is intrinsically linked to the loyalty and relationships football brands have with their fans.

Many a sponsor brand has benefitted from large investments in clubs and events. But sport brands are much more than the sum of their wins and financial growth; they embody the dreams of nations, communities and individuals and ought to be amongst the most meaningful brands in the world. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, said in April 2014: “Sport is a universal language, uniting groups and nations across divides. Sport empowers youth, promotes good health and deepens UN values such as equality, mutual respect and fair play.”

Contrast this buoyant picture with football’s governing body, Fifa. Allegations of corruption have surrounded Fifa for decades. The recent revelations have the potential to taint football’s showpiece event, the World Cup, in the eyes of fans for decades; it will snake through the media and social media for a long time, as the legal wrangles and mud-slinging play out, and it should be a stark warning to sponsors. Corruption is the issue that’s holding the business of sport back. In fact, Havas Media’s From Marketing to Mattering global survey of 30,000 people found that “ending corruption” was ranked as the biggest issue for all businesses to address.

Fifa has historically been vociferous in protecting its brand platform, stamping out so-called “guerilla” marketing tactics from brands that wish to associate with the moment without paying for sponsorship. It will be interesting to see how (or if) brands, including clubs, national teams and sponsors, use their collective power to accelerate Fifa’s reform. It is unimaginable that brands such as Visa, Coca-Cola, EA Games and Adidas will simply stand by and allow their reputations to be tainted by association in the eyes of the fans who fuel their profits.

So what about those people who buy the replica kit, the tickets and the pricey console games? Wealthy clubs, winning both on the field and in the sponsorship game, must remember who put them there and ensure the value exchange exists for their fans, as any other household brand should. The ordinary folks that buy into the glory of the club have growing expectations that football brands will offer them something more than goals.

Football clubs must stay close to the values and attitudes of the fans and supporters who put them where they are. Evidence is showing that the obsession with growing financial value in the business of football may be obscuring brands’ attention to demonstrating shared values with their fans.

According to Havas Media’s Meaningful Brands UK survey, club brands are not delivering to expectations. Manchester United, for example, lags significantly behind peers in the category on factors such as offering fair prices and respecting customers (fans). It’s great to be big, but truly big brands invest in the small, too. Manchester United should nurture its relationships with individual fans as closely as it does its relationships with sponsors. Without those small relationships the brand will, in time, be worth far less to Adidas and many others.

Sharon Johnson is CEO of RE:PURPOSE, the social business consultancy of the Havas Media UK Group

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