ABSTRACT

Despite the high number of crises encountered within sport, crisis communication management in sport remains understudied. Operational crisis communication in particular can be considered an uncharted territory, regardless of its potential significant effects on sport organisations’ reputation. In this study we explore the themes used in FIFA’s communication during the Covid-19 pandemic, to understand how operational organisational crisis communication was managed by football’s leading sport organisation in this unprecedented climate. Content analysis is conducted in all FIFA’s press releases and Twitter messages related to Covid-19 from March 5th to July 3rd 2020, in order for insights to be offered to the content and meaning of FIFA’s operational crisis communication, their attempts to emphasise the organisation’s positive traits and actions, and the links built with managing and improving the organisation’s reputation. The analysis of the themes used indicates that proactive planning of crisis communication management had been conducted, while lessons from previous handling of crises appear to have been learned. By outlining the crisis communication strategy adopted by FIFA, we offer insights to the unexplored area of operational crisis communication in sports, while presenting a roadmap for operational crisis communication management for other sport organisations and future studies exploring the topic.

摘要

尽管体育运动中遇到了大量危机，但体育运动中的危机沟通管理仍未得到充分研究。尤其是运营危机沟通可以被视为一个未知领域，无论其对体育组织声誉的潜在重大影响如何。在这项研究中，我们探讨了 FIFA 在 Covid-19 大流行期间沟通中使用的主题，以了解足球领先的体育组织在这种前所未有的气候下如何管理运营组织危机沟通。从 2020 年 3 月 5 日到 7 月 3 日，对国际足联所有与 Covid-19 相关的新闻稿和推特消息进行了内容分析，以便深入了解国际足联运营危机沟通的内容和意义，他们试图强调该组织的积极特征和动作，以及与管理和提高组织声誉建立的联系。对所用主题的分析表明，已经进行了危机沟通管理的前瞻性规划，同时似乎已经吸取了以往处理危机的经验教训。通过概述国际足联采用的危机沟通策略，我们提供了对体育运动中运营危机沟通尚未探索的领域的见解，同时为其他体育组织和探索该主题的未来研究提出了运营危机沟通管理的路线图。