Visa Barred from Joining MasterCard World Cup Sponsorship Suit

by Mike Bevel,
soccer fan, CollectionIndustry.com

While MasterCard and the Federation Internationale de Football Association continue to duke it out over MasterCard?s claim that it was unfairly passed over for World Cup sponsorship, Visa, who beat out MasterCard, will have to stay on the sidelines.

(There?s probably some witty way of stating this, involving soccer terms like ?flags? and ?gooooooooal? but, whatever.)

A U.S. appeals court has denied an attempt by the payments network to join litigation between the rivals, according to a story in today?s Wall Street Journal.

“While it is true that our request to join the suit has been denied, we are confident that our contract rights will be honored, and look forward to activating this sponsorship in January 2007,” Visa said in a statement.

MasterCard is seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the Visa sponsorship from moving forward.

“We maintain our belief that we have a strong legal basis to compel FIFA to grant MasterCard the right to be an official sponsor of the next two FIFA World Cup tournaments,” said Noah Hanft, MasterCard’s general counsel, in a statement.