Daddies' Sauce: Sponsors of Chelsea's Terry May Wield Ax Over Affair With Teammates' Wife

(MoneyWatch)  It's Britain's equivalent of the Tiger Woods scandal: Chelsea F.C. and England captain John Terry had an affair with the wife of Wayne Bridge, a teammate. From a marketing point of view the scandal is a disaster for Daddies Sauce, a brand of condiment, which had annointed the married father of twins its Dad of the Year in 2009. With Terry's troubles now gracing the front page of the Wall Street Journal, the term "Daddies Sauce" is set to take on a whole new, unfortunate meaning.

It's also (another) lesson for marketers in the risks of signing up an athlete endorser. On the one hand, you get this famous, fit, good looking person that fans adore. On the other, pro-athletes by definition have been coddled since childhood in a world where everyone tells them they're the bees knees, money and friends come easy, and you never have to develop the character that comes from the daily grind the rest of us face.

That's the backstory for this priceless piece of context regarding Terry's "character":

In 2001, Mr. Terry drunkenly taunted American tourists in a Heathrow Airport hotel in the immediate aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks. A year later, he was caught on camera urinating in a beer glass, which he then dropped on the floor. In 2008, Mr. Terry was fined for parking his Bentley in a spot for the disabled. Last December, he was secretly filmed giving unauthorized tours of his team's training ground to journalists posing as businessmen, allegedly in return for ?£10,000 (or $15,900) cash.

Experts believe that, like Woods, Terry's sponsors will quietly suspend and then end their cash deals with him. The ?£5 million deathwatch list includes:

• Daddies Sauce
• Vodafone
• Pepsi
• Umbro
• Samsung
• Nationwide
• Konami/Pro Evolution Soccer
• Svenska Spel
• Gillette

The Gillette sponsorship comes from this Evening Standard article, but I believe that it may be an error -- surely the London paper isn't confusing John Terry with F.C. Barcelona and France's Thierry Henry, who did do ads for the P&G brand?

• Related:
• Chelsea F.C. Star Pimped Via Spam: "Want John Terry to Endorse Your Brand?"