Acknowledging sponsorship in soccer

...the example of TT & IT Marketing Services

(A GNA Feature by Caesar Abagali)

Tamale, May 5, GNA - Sponsorship for sporting events has become a firm pillar that supports modern day sports in Ghana and other parts of the world. It is not impossible to imagine what sports; particularly soccer would have looked like in the absence of sponsorship at the international, national and individual levels.

FIFA competitions and Olympic Games have all assumed the greatness as well as the competitiveness due to sponsors like Coca-cola, Pepsi and Guinness among others, which unflinchingly helped in the development of sports.

At the national or local level in Ghana, however, recent upsurge of enthusiasm in the success of the Black Stars, the Starlets and even the national league teams have whet the interest of many corporate bodies to venture into sponsoring sports. Many a mind have it that the Black Stars' first ever qualification to the World Cup was made possible largely as a result of sponsorship given by Gold Fields Ghana. Sponsorship in Ghana became increasingly important when Guinness Ghana, Department of National Lotteries and other companies on a much smaller scale entered the fray.

Before then there were companies such as TT Brothers who were already sponsoring sports but in a silent mode.

TT & IT Marketing Services is a household name in Ghana but many Ghanaians do not know much about the company though they patronize the company's products on daily basis.

TT is an acronym of Tadek Tomaszewski, a South African investor in partnership with Isaac Tetteh, (IT) a young Ghanaian entrepreneur, hence the joint name "TT & IT Marketing Services, engaged in the importation and marketing of PureJoy fruit juice, Tango fruit juice, Maracuja, Saint Crusade Brandy and Ever Fresh milk as well as Vita Mina.

Over the years, the company had sponsored sports programmes including individual journalists to sports festivals both within and outside the country to the tune of huge amounts of money. It is therefore for nothing that TT and IT Marketing Services for instance was the sole company that sponsored the Ghana News Agency (GNA) to the juvenile World Cup competition in Peru in September 2005. Selling its PureJoy fruit juice product by way of advertisement was the only thing the company needed.

But thanks to the company, the Peru 2005 youth soccer fiesta came closer to Ghanaians through the use of GNA stories by almost all the FM stations in the country including some foreign missions, newspapers as well as discussions on Television and radio talk shows. Sponsorship, however, depends on a number of considerations depending on the basis to which the private sector is developed. The Private sector in Ghana still has a long way to go despite tremendous upsurge in its developmental agenda.

The role of government and its relationship with the private sector both in its policy and encouragement needs to be improved. Two mechanisms such as tax relief as an incentive can play a pivotal role in whether the private sector itself can be developed into some extent and to a larger extent shape their interest in sponsorships. Companies like TT and IT Marketing Services need a strong commendation for the remarkable interest into sponsorship. The Financial institutions, Insurance Companies and the Airlines should also be commended but they need to be made to understand the benefits they tend to derive from sponsoring journalists to cover such festivals.

As the days to Germany 2006 World Cup is drawing closer, many companies would be competing to be associated with it and no stone should be left unturned by media houses whose reporters may stand to benefit from such sponsorship packages from interested companies to strive hard to ensure that the companies are well marketed. There is the need for mutual trust between the media houses and the private sector to help develop and sustain especially the passion of the nation, soccer among other sporting events. 05 May 06