Agua: Portuguese for panic selling

Four billion dollars. Of money. Can you believe it? No, I can't either, and what's amazing is that-huh? Oh, I'm talking about how much value Coca-Cola's stocks lost when a footballer suggested everyone drink water. So when jerks whine about how sports people should stay in their lane and keep their opinions to themselves, it's not because players don't have something valuable to say, it's because what they have to say can do this.

Basically this.

Full disclosure: I actually have no idea if you're
having a stroke. But if you are, it has nothing
 to do with Euro 2020, it's just a coincidence.

It happened at a press conference in Budapest, as part of the 2020 European Football Championship, and no, you're not having a stroke, it was originally scheduled for 2020, but you know, COVID. At the conference, someone had just casually set up bottles of coke near all the microphones and Cristiano Ronaldo, Captain of Portugal's football team, wasn't having it. He shoved them out of frame, picked up a water bottle and urged everyone to drink that instead of the brown sugar-sludge corporate synergy demanded. And I say, good for him.

Coca-Cola has had a partnership with the United European Football Associations since the 80's, which is strange given their even longer partnership with obesity and diabetes. 

What? I'm not wrong.

Pictured: the UEFA spokesperson.
Metaphorically, I mean.

And not for nothing, but that was a shitty move on Coke's part putting their bottles our there on the table in the hopes of getting a free endorsement from the team captains. A spokesperson for UEFA released a statement saying: 

"Players are offered water, alongside Coca-Cola...on arrival at our press conferees." and that everyone "is entitled to their drink preferences."

-The UEFA trying to put out a fire

Our entire economy relies on idiots
keeping their cool. It's not a great system.

Uh-huh. Well today, Coke's stock went from $56.10 to $55.22 per share which, according to this works out to be a loss of four billion dollars. And look, I don't mean to take pleasure, schadenfreude, if you will, in Coke's loses. Regular working people own stock too, and it's part of 401K's, and savings and it sucks that this hurts them to. But people didn't stop buying Coke because Ronaldo told them too--although they absolutely should--it just means investors thought that people will do that and sold. So if we're going to blame anyone, let's blame panicky investors.

Oh, and Coca-Cola. You can totally blame Coca-Cola. They could have asked Ronaldo if he wouldn't mind shilling their product, but instead they tried to get a free endorsement from an athlete whose entire livelihood is dependent on being in peak physical condition. Something it can't be when it's full of goddamn corn syrup, caramel color, and whatever else is in this soda which we all pretend isn't as bad as smoking or meth. Ok, fine, meth is way worse, but still, in many ways, the Coca-Cola company got what they deserved.

Pictured: Ronaldo Cristiano, in defiance of corporate greed, waving an unbranded
bottle of clear, unsweetened liquid known as agua in his native Portuguese.
Of course, the bottle is plastic, which isn't great, but one thing at a time.