MasterCard and Fifa are today set to kick off a bitter grudge match over billions of dollars of World Cup sponsorship as the credit card company claims it was unfairly shown the red card by football’s governing body in favour of its arch rival Visa.

MasterCard was ditched as the prime sponsor of the World Cup by Fifa earlier this year even though the credit card company believed it was still in negotiations to renew its 16-year-old contract for a further eight years.

Unknown to MasterCard, Fifa was also in talks with Visa about a new sponsorship offer, which it has since signed.

Visa has dedicated a large chunk of a $1 billion (£510 million) marketing budget towards promoting its World Cup sponsorship, which is set to begin in January.

But in a New York court today, MasterCard will contend that Fifa had already drafted a new contract with the New York-based credit card company and that signing a deal with Visa was a breach of the terms of its existing deal.

MasterCard filed the lawsuit against Fifa earlier this year but neither side would comment yesterday.

A lawyer for Fifa has said, however, that the football body had lived up to its obligations under contract with MasterCard and did nothing wrong.

According to the lawsuit MasterCard claims it had the right of first refusal when the eight-year Fifa contract came to an end.

It is also alleged that MasterCard and Fifa were in normal negotiations until March this year when the football body abruptly refused to sign the new deal on the grounds of a technicality.

A few weeks later the surprise deal with Visa was announced, MasterCard claims.

It has been estimated that MasterCard paid in the region of $35 million for its sponsorship deal with Fifa, which compares with the $20 million or so companies pay to become the official sponsor of the Olympics.

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