Lionel Messi BYJU: Byju Raveendran has responded to the controversy that arose following the announcement of his EdTech startup’s signing of star footballer Lionel Messi as its global brand ambassador last year. The announcement of the Messi deal came just days after Byju’s laid off 2,500 employees, which drew scathing criticism on social media, with people questioning how the company could afford to sign one of the world’s highest-paid athletes while also cutting costs by firing employees. Follow Football LIVE Updates on InsideSport.IN
During his appearance at the India Today Conclave 2023, Byju’s founder, Byju Raveendran, attributed the controversy to bad timing. He also recounted a time when Byju’s was still striving for success and he himself had to go to great lengths to catch a glimpse of the footballer.
#IndiaTodayConclave | Byju Raveendran and Divya Gokulnath address the row over Messi being made Byju’s brand ambassador, layoffs and more.
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What did Byju Raveendran say?
In November of last year, Raveendran had already addressed the controversy surrounding the Messi deal, stating that it had been in the works for six months. He had also dismissed claims that the company would pay for Messi while simultaneously letting employees go, calling such allegations foolish.
During his recent appearance at the India Today Conclave, he again cited redundancies and role duplications from acquiring other businesses as reasons for the workforce reduction.
“The deal was signed many months ago. In one week, you can’t sign Messi for a partnership,” Raveendran explained when asked about the ill-timed deal. “Unlike a business partnership, it’s a very different level of partnership where (he) mainly promotes our education for all,” he said, reiterating the argument he had also made last year.
“After signing him up, we have actually doubled the number of NGOs and the inbound interest which we got from NGOs. Unfortunately, it clashed with… we had to let go of some of our team members,” said the founder of Byju’s. “Everyone talks about the 2,500 people we had to lay off during those three months, but no one talks about the 25,000 we hired during the last 12 months,” he added.
The year of 2011 when Lionel Messi and his team Argentina visited Kolkata for a friendly FIFA match and Byju’s was still in its early days.
“There was no way I would have been able to meet Messi 10 years back when we were just starting the company,” Byju Raveendran told panelists at the conclave. “So when Argentina came to Kolkata, I stayed in the same hotel and constantly went up and down the elevator for two days and finally caught him in the elevator.”
He revealed this titbit to Messi more than a decade later, after signing him as a global brand ambassador. “I recently met him during the sponsorship deal and mentioned this to him. He was literally taken aback.”
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