Battle Over Bud Brewing
for French-Hosted World Cup

PARIS -- The French like to tease Americans about their distaste for such poisons as cigarette smoke and butter -- both common fare here. But in a dispute over beer advertising now coming to a head, France is playing the role of spoilsport.

France is the host nation for soccer's 1998 World Cup, a mega sporting event whose month of playoffs is expected to be watched by a cumulative 37 billion television viewers, twice as many as the Atlanta Olympics. Sponsors whose ads are affixed on placards around the field will receive invaluable publicity for their products.

So thought brewer Anheuser-Busch Cos. of St. Louis when it signed up to be one of 12 corporate sponsors. But French law, it turns out, prohibits all alcohol and tobacco advertising. That means no signs on the field for Budweiser, and it means a big brouhaha with the French government.

"We are sensitive to French law . . . but this marketing opportunity is so global that to not have our boards on the field is a huge missed opportunity," said Tony Ponturo, Anheuser-Busch vice president for corporate media and sports marketing. He was in Paris on Wednesday to kick off a week of negotiations.

The 1991 law has proven to be something of a problem for televised sports of all kinds. Banning cigarette or alcohol advertising when the events are in France is one thing. But when they are elsewhere in Europe -- if, say, the Monaco-Italy match is in Milan -- the sidelines could be plastered with ads for those products. To prevent impressionable French eyes from seeing them, French television broadcasters are required to try to keep such messages out of camera range.

"They will try to avoid the signs, but they won't miss a goal, for instance, if the sign is located behind the goalkeeper," said Christophe Kukawka, press director for the French World Cup organization. The problem became so complex with Formula One race car competitions, typically chock-full of cigarette and other ads, that a 1993 amendment granted an exception for "mechanical sports" in foreign countries. But in all other respects, a spokeswoman for the Health Ministry said, "the law is very clear."

Anheuser-Busch was aware of the law when it signed on as a sponsor in 1995, some four years after the legislation became effective. Whether the company realized the extent of its effect is unclear; Ponturo said there was hope it would be deemed not to apply to the World Cup. Another official pointed out that viewers in countries other than France will be deprived of the ability to see Budweiser ads. Anheuser-Busch took its case to the European Commission but was rebuffed last February.

For Anheuser-Busch, the soccer event is a key element of its strategy to push Budweiser into European markets. Without the World Cup, it will be that much harder to wean the Dutch away from Heineken, the French away from Kronenbourg and the Swiss away from Feldschlossen.

One proposed compromise would treat the French stadiums where the events will be held as semi-denationalized zones where French law does not necessarily apply. One problem: The name of the unfinished and costly principal stadium is Stade de France, a rather national name. Another proposal would black out the Budweiser signs in French broadcasts and not elsewhere, assuming feasible technology. And Anheuser-Busch hopes for an amendment to the law itself.

The anti-alcohol lobby -- yes, France has one -- is unlikely to accept that last possibility. A petition by the group Free Life has accumulated 9,000 signatures backing the law. Among the supporters are actress Jeanne Moreau, designer Christian Lacroix, a winner of the Nobel Prize for medicine and various politicians and labor unions.

"We are a country where wine is a religion. But we also have 50,000 to 100,000 deaths related to alcohol each year," said Daniel Dabit, secretary general of Free Life. "We just want to protect people a bit, especially the young."

Per capita consumption of beer here ranks only 32nd in the world, while the United States is 12th. Even higher on the consumption list, however, are such soccer-and-beer-loving countries as Germany, Ireland and Britain.

Anheuser-Busch's best hope may be French President Jacques Chirac, who was recently lobbied by letter by Anheuser-Busch President August A. Busch III. During the summer of 1953, Chirac held a variety of jobs while he wandered around the United States as a college student. Legend has it that one job was at the Budweiser brewery in St. Louis.

The Elysee Palace said it cannot confirm the report and that it is probably false. Anheuser-Busch said it cannot confirm it but thinks it is probably true.

© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company