Aussies’ Manchester United Ronaldo campaign comes to an end after scam claims
An Aussie media and marketing duo who launched a social media campaign to bring Cristiano Ronaldo to Manchester United have called a halt to their campaign after fans became concerned the project was a scam
As Mumbrella reported in May, Diageo Australia’s former director of corporate relations Ron Ainsbury and digital agency owner Catch Andrew Dent were behind the Bring Ronaldo Home social media campaign.
The duo traveled to the UK to launch the push to bring the footballer back to the club.
Ainsbury
Dent
Ainsbury is currently a business strategy consultant and a visiting professor to Rotterdam Business School. He was in the Diageo role from 2001 to 2008.
Dent worked on Reed Business Information’s Catch from 2000 to 2010 and helped build the company into a multi-million dollar operation. Previously he was strategy and development director of digital publisher ScienceDirect and also spent two years working for Nike. He now runs digital agency TribalChoice which created the website and ran the social media camapaign for the Bring Ronaldo Home project.
But ovet the weekend, they issued a statement saying they were calling off the campaign, and blaming an unnamed journalist for making the public suspicious of their motives.
The campaign asked fans to donate cash towards the cost of bringing Ronaldo to the club, with the promise of a special shirt if he came. But questions were raised over the campaign’s terms and conditions, which stated that an administration fee would be taken.
In a statement issued yesterday, the campaign group – owned by new company Equius – said it was dropping the campaign and refunding the fan donations:
“Just as the campaign was gaining traction and encouraging media interest from around the globe (early pledges came from 52 countries) the campaign was damaged by a vicious and slanderous campaign. A UK-based freelance journalist decided that our website “must be a scam”. Despite our repeated efforts to persuade this journalist otherwise she proceeded, amongst other activities, to make libelous statements on social media and in telephone conversations with other journalists – resulting in negative mediapublicity.
“As a direct consequence of the libel, Equius has now found it impossible to continue.”
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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How does that actually work that fans’ donations are capable of bringing an athlete under contract to one organisation over to another?
Would the money be donated to the multi-millionaire American family who own the majority of ManU stock in order to pay a transfer fee to Real? Would the money go directly to Ronaldo to convince him to force Real to honour a non-existent transfer request? Would Real get the fans’ cash to encourage them to transfer their star? Could enough money ever be generated to make any kind of a difference to any of these financial parties involved?
If this isn’t a scam, which would be damning for the two admen, then it’s just the stupidest public funding idea anyone has ever heard of, which isn’t very complimentary either.
If the claims of libel are true, then I’m guessing we’ll be seeing a lawsuit aimed at the journalist and her publication, but we won’t hold our collective breath.
We’re guessing that the costs of building the website, traveling to London, and some ‘administrative fees’ are somehow going to end up on the tax statements of these two and be subtracted from the amounts they’d otherwise owe to the Australian government . . . so it’s not a total loss, unless you’re Australian and those tax dollars won’t make it into the budget pool this coming year.
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I took part in it and I received all my money back, it’s not a scam, I just wish it had succeeded
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@ Stunt or Scheme?
Fans pay for player transfers all the time? They buy shirts, coats, scarves, tickets, games, TV subscriptions and much more. Fans fund transfers and this was another, new way of increasing $’s to enable a club to purchase a player. Let me guess; you are a conspiracy theorist? “It has to be a scam!”
As for tax, the Australian government will always try it’s best to support entrepreneurial, smart talented people who can earn good money for the country. If ventures such as these take off and are HQ’d in Aus we should be supportive of the effort. Good on the guys for having a go I say.
Admittedly, I am glad they didn’t buy Ronaldo, because I am not a Utd supporter 🙂
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I’ve seen the You Tube Interviews on the Red Devil’s channel and BringRonaldoHome, and one of the co-founders mentions that it was really a drive for an opt in global email database which makes sense, and if you read the Equius statement, Dent and Ainsbury are service providers to “the Man Utd Fan”.
The You Tube Vido’s have over 100,000 views, and with 15,000 on Twitter, and 7,000 on Facebook, plus the 6,000 pledges, I can see that they maybe commercialising that asset.
Good effort I reckon – I’d love to know what they learnt, as surely Man Utd or Nike or Ronaldo ext, would have shut it down, if it was a scam.
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whoever has said those things about that campaign for ronaldo returning to old trafford are people i call ‘arse holes’ what was the problem about it, i bought 5 t-shits and yes, i did get my money back. I think if this campaign didnt put the money raised to Man Utd’s attention it would be viral afterwards and be dealt with, there was no need to stop this campaign! I hope the person who made these allogations realises how much of a bitch she really is!!!
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