Cristiano Ronaldo and Coca Cola – What happened?

Over the past week, the whole world has witnessed Portuguese footballer, Cristiano Ronaldo’s name being swamped in headlines due to a small action on his part. On 14 June 2021, during a press conference in Budapest before his team’s match against Hungary, Ronaldo relocated two bottles of the American soft drink Coca Cola and shouted ‘agua’ which translates to water in Portuguese and held up a bottle of water thereafter.

The footballer and team captain who is known for keeping a healthy lifestyle and often urges his fans to maintain a wholesome diet encouraged the public to choose water over unhealthy carbohydrate soft drinks like Coca Cola itself through his actions. Consequently, the whole world was left in shock as Coca Cola is one of the official sponsors of Euro 2020 and Ronaldo publicly stating his preference was interpreted as a mock towards the Asa Griggs Candler founded company.

Alleged impact on Coca- Cola’s share price

As soon as news of Ronaldo’s press conference broke out, reports began to pour out with headlines stating that the footballer’s open indication of his disliking had actually led the share price of Coca Cola to plummet to $ 55.22 from $ 56.10 (a dip of approximately 1.6%). Furthermore, many reports also disclosed that the soft drink company had suffered a loss of almost 4 billion dollars as the company’s net worth dropped down to $238 billion from $242 billion all due to the Portuguese footballer and his statement.

The Spanish newspaper Marca which was one of the first to publish a report on this issue asserted that it had ‘analyzed the data from the New York Stock Exchange. Moreover, other sources cited that a man from a ‘small country’ had the ability to ‘sink a multinational’. On the other hand, many also praised and appreciated the power that influencers hold in their hands and also indicated that more and more MNCs should approach them (influencers) for marketing their products. While close observers and followers of the stock market were in a state of shock and disbelief due to the incident, many of them found the news to be believable given Ronaldo’s status of fame and popularity.

The truth behind the situation - Ronaldo did not affect stock price

A few days after the situation had settled down, new reports from Forbes have emerged which claimed that Ronaldo’s statement or his actions did not affect the share or market price of the soft drink multinational.

Coca Cola has the ownership of 4.3 billion shares. On the 11th of June, Friday, the stock market closed at an individual share price of $56.16 and a net worth of $242 billion for the MNC. On June 14, the stock market opened for operation at 9: 30 am (EST). Ten minutes later, at 9:40, the individual stock price fell to $55.26 and the market value stooped to $238 million (a drop of $4 billion as stated earlier). It was at 9:43 am (EST) that Cristiano Ronaldo moved the soft-drink bottles and shouted “agua”. While one can say that both the aforementioned events occurred during the same hour, it cannot be inferred at all that one event led to the other and that Cristiano contributed to the fall in any way. On the contrary, the fall in share or market price occurred due to reasons that are absolutely unrelated to the footballer or even sports.

The fact that media outlets from all around the world jumped to conclusions and rushed to report or publish them without any solid proof they could back their stance with, is a clear instance of how the world and the media need to increase their awareness of the stock market and examine the details minutely of any event that occurs in the future.

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