MILAN. Two billion dollars a bottle. This is the loss at the level of stock market capitalization accused by Coca Cola due to the gesture of Cristiano Ronaldo at the press conference before Hungary-Portugal. CR7 has moved two bottles of the well-known sponsor drink of the European Championship, taking a bottle of natural water in hand, because it does not like carbonated drinks for reasons of nutrition. The consequences even reached the stock market. Shares of Coca Cola fell from $ 56.10 to $ 55.22. A decrease of 1.6%. Thus the total value of the multinational went from 242 to 238 billion dollars in total. 4 billion went up in smoke in a few hours.
The shareholders of the Atlanta giant will not be happy. And now those of Heineken can start to worry after Paul Pogba’s gesture at the end of Germany-France. The French champion, who intervened in the press room as the best player of the match (absolutely sumptuous performance), sent away two bottles of the famous beer, for years commercially linked to UEFA for its competitions. In this case the motivation is religious: Pogba is Muslim (two years ago he was on a pilgrimage to Mecca), so he does not like to be associated with alcoholic beverages. Heineken shareholders may begin to check the listings on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange with some concern. And UEFA will have to start marking players’ movements closely with the European sponsored drinks.