Big demands on the Big Three of football

Beckenbauer even had to convene a conference of all his sponsors to try to achieve better coordination of all his obligations, while Pele had to give up a cabinet post in Brazil in order to be able to meet his commitments for France ’98.

Platini, the World Cup co-organiser, you see nowadays wearing dark glasses even in overcast weather in the morning, trying to conceal eyes which have become red from all the stress.

Beckenbauer has now gotten a small break, ironically thanks to the elimination of Germany in the quarter-finals. His own TV programme Schau’n mer malR Bavarian dialectfor `Let’s see what happens’, which became his trademark comment when he was Germany’s national coach had its final show on Sunday evening.

But Germany’s famous football, Kaiser, still has a lot of work to do at France ’98, and his many appointments have him constantly on the run.Long-time business manager Robert Schwan had convened two meetings of sponsors at a tavern in Beckenbauer’s home town of Kitzbuehel in the Austrian Alps before the World Cup to plan the logistics for all the appearances which the former football great was scheduled to make in France.According to the news magazine Der Spiegel, one result of those meetings was that the sponsors had to come up with a private jet for Beckenbauer to enable him to fly back home to Kitzbuehel now and then to rest up during the month-long tournament.

He’s a darling of the sponsors Beckenbauer earns an estimated $5.5 million a year through commercial endorsements but the German football celebrity, who is also president of the prestige club BayernMunich, has to work hard.Among others, Beckenbauer must make appearances for the private pay-TV channel Premiere, for the media giant Bertelsmann, for the marketing company UFA, the carmaker Opel, the Warsteiner Brewery, the cellular phone company E-Plus, the sporting goods company Adidas and even a company which makes screws. He also writes a column for the mass-circulation newspaper Bild.

Opel is also the main sponsor of Bayern Munich, and Beckenbauer has his own spearate five-year contract, which puts him in special obligation to the company at the World Cup among other duties being to accompany Opel executives to football matches, make small talk with some of the company’s big-time customers, and shake hands at about a dozen PR dates.

Former Brazilian footballing great Pele, with whom Beckenbauer once played on the same team the New York Cosmos back in the late 1970s, also cannot complain about too much idle time.

Interviews, autograph sessions, TV shows and many other appointments fill up Pele’sdays at France ’98. Pele is marketed by his own management company, and he has his own daily TV show called Pele Moments which is sold in 50 countries.

The 57-year-old is also on hire for the Brazilian Broadcaster Globo, for the sporting goods maker Umbro and for the credit card company Mastercard, whom he has been representing for seven years.

Platini, captain of France’s 1984 European Championship team, is constantly on the move in an official function as co-chairman of the World Cup Organising Committee, and in the VIP lounge, he sits between French President Jacques Chirac and Premier Lionel Jospin.

As agile as he was on the playing field, Platini is finding it hard to scramble from one appointment to the next and bear ultimate responsibility for everything at France ’98.

Appearing nervous, fatigued and hectic at the same time, Platini now admits that he’s looking forward to the end of the tournament, during which so far he has attended no fewer than 44 matches held throughout the country.“Iwon’t be unhappy when it’s all over,” said Platini.