Yes, billion with a b.
In a Monday press conference ahead of Portugal’s first Group F match against Hungary, Cristiano Ronaldo took a seat and noticed two Coca-Cola bottles near his microphone. He was absolutely disgusted, but he shouldn’t have been surprised. The soft drink company is an official partner of Euro 2020. Coca-Cola also sponsors a ton of top tier international sporting events, too. You’ll see a lot of ‘em at next month’s Olympic Games.
Once the Portuguese captain saw the soda, he looked around, picked the two bottles up, and moved them out of the shot.
“Água,” he said, raising his bottle of water.
Ok, whatever.
But we now know that this snub cost Coca-Cola 4 billion in market value.
New reporting shows Coke’s shares fell by 1.6 percent by the end of the press conference. And the market value dropped from $242 billion to $238 billion.
Coca-Cola responded in a statement on Tuesday saying, “everyone is entitled to their drink preferences” with different “tastes and needs.”
A spokesperson for Euro 2020 also added: “Players are offered water, alongside Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, on arrival at our press conferences.” The spokesperson added how everyone “is entitled to their drink preferences.”
The move was praised by anti-obesity campaigners.
A day after Ronaldo repositioned two Coca-Cola’s from the table, another soccer star removed a Heineken (another Euro 2020 sponsor) from his man of the match press conference.
What the tweet doesn’t mention is that Paul Pogba is a practicing Muslim who does not drink alcohol.
Perhaps the Frenchman didn’t see that the beer he moved was non-alcoholic. Or maybe he moved it on principle. I’m not sure. Either way, if he wants to remove something off a table because it conflicts with his religious beliefs, he should continue to have the freedom to do so.
And to answer your follow up question, no, the Heineken stock did not take a hit.