As sport becomes an increasingly valuable marketing platform, the challenge for brands is no longer whether they should invest, but how they should do it. According to Valentino Brodkorb, brand partnerships director, Provoke and a licensed FIFA agent, too many brands continue to treat sponsorship as a logo placement exercise rather than an opportunity to create genuine engagement with fans.

Speaking to Manifest on the sidelines of Lions Sport (held during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity), Brodkorb discussed why football remains one of the world's biggest untapped commercial opportunities, why India needs to think long term if it wants to build a thriving football ecosystem, and why FIFA may soon have to rethink its approach to creators and broadcasting rights.

As a licensed FIFA agent, he helps emerging Brazilian and Japanese footballers secure sponsorships, while also facilitating partnerships for established players such as Italy's Lorenzo Insigne and France defender Wesley Fofana.

That combination of athlete management and brand partnerships gives Brodkorb a unique perspective on how sporting ecosystems develop, and why India represents one of football's biggest missed opportunities.

While cricket continues to dominate India's sporting landscape, Brodkorb believes football's long-term commercial potential is enormous, simply because of the country's population.

"More than a billion people already follow football globally. That number could easily double if India truly embraces the sport," he said.

Interestingly, he pointed out that football carries a very different perception in Europe than it does in India.

"In Europe, football is traditionally a working-class sport," he explained.

In contrast, European football in India has largely become associated with affluent audiences, helped by overseas travel, expensive merchandise and premium broadcasting. That premium perception has attracted a relatively narrow set of advertisers.

Brodkorb admitted that he didn't know the Indian market deeply enough to prescribe detailed solutions, but says India's absence from elite global football inevitably limits international commercial attention.

"Indian clubs aren't competing on the biggest stage, and the country hasn't qualified for the FIFA World Cup."

Given India's population, however, he believes there is no structural reason why the country cannot eventually produce world-class footballers.

For Brodkorb, the formula is: infrastructure, grassroots development and accessibility.

Brands, he argued, need to stop viewing football through the lens of quarterly returns.

"If you're there for children when they're six or seven years old, they'll remember that for the rest of their lives," he said.

Supporting young players with quality coaching, equipment and facilities may not generate immediate sales, but it fundamentally changes how future consumers perceive brands.

"Brands have commercial interests too. They want to see ROI," he acknowledged. "But we advise brands not to treat these as one-off initiatives."

Read the full chat with Brodkorb in the July issue of Manifest, that can be purchased here.