First published June 17, 2021.
At Euro 2020, Cristiano Ronaldo moved two Coca-Cola bottles out of camera shot and held up water instead, and a day later Paul Pogba took a Heineken bottle off his table. Both moments went viral within hours. A popular claim followed that Ronaldo's gesture wiped about $4 billion off Coca-Cola's value. That claim does not stand up: the share price had started falling before he even sat down, mainly because it was the stock's ex-dividend day.
Here is what actually happened in each press conference, why the players did it, how sponsors and UEFA responded, and what the episode tells us about athletes and advertising.
What Ronaldo did, and why
Euro 2020 was played from 11 June to 11 July 2021, a year late because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it kept its original name. On Monday 14 June, Portugal's captain sat down in Budapest for the press conference before his team's opening game against Hungary. Two bottles of Coca-Cola, an official tournament sponsor, had been placed in front of him.
Ronaldo slid them aside, lifted a bottle of water and said simply "Agua", the Portuguese for water. The clip spread around the world within hours.
The gesture fits what Ronaldo has said for years about diet and fitness. He is known for a strict regime, avoids sugary drinks, and has said in interviews that he does not like his eldest son, Cristiano Jr., drinking fizzy drinks or eating crisps. For him, it was a statement about health, not a protest against one company in particular, although he did not explain it at the time.
The $4 billion myth
Soon after, headlines claimed Ronaldo had "wiped" around $4 billion off Coca-Cola. The numbers behind that came from a real fall in the share price that day: from about $56.16 at Friday's close to roughly $55.20 at its low, around 1.6%, which on a company of that size is about $4 billion of market value.
Fact-checkers looked at the timing and found a problem:
- The New York market opened at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the shares had already dropped to around $55.26 by 9:40, before Ronaldo's press conference began at about 9:45.
- 14 June 2021 was Coca-Cola's ex-dividend date. On that day a share no longer carries the right to the upcoming dividend, so its price is automatically adjusted down by roughly the dividend amount.
- The price soon recovered, and the stock was well up on the previous year.
Snopes and Logically Facts both concluded there was no real evidence the gesture moved the share price. A moment that grabs attention and a market movement on the same morning are not the same thing as cause and effect.
What Pogba did, and why
On 15 June France beat Germany 1-0 in Munich, with Pogba named man of the match. At his press conference afterwards he removed a bottle of Heineken 0.0, the brewer's alcohol-free beer, from the table in front of him.
Pogba is a practising Muslim and does not drink alcohol. Even though the bottle was alcohol-free, it carried a beer brand, and he chose not to be pictured promoting it. He has spoken openly in past interviews about how his faith brought him a sense of peace and helped him look at life differently.
His gesture was different in nature from Ronaldo's. Ronaldo's was about health and personal habits; Pogba's was about religious conviction. Both, however, showed players deciding for themselves what products appear next to their faces on screen.
How the sponsors and UEFA reacted
Both brands stayed calm. Heineken said it fully respected everyone's decision about their drink of choice. Coca-Cola did not respond directly and pointed reporters to UEFA, which said players were offered a range of drinks and could choose their preferred beverage at press conferences.
Behind the scenes, UEFA reminded teams that sponsorship deals help fund the tournament. It also reportedly confirmed that players who did not want alcohol-branded bottles near them for religious reasons could ask for them to be removed. A few other players joked about the episode by moving bottles or reaching for them, which kept the story alive for several days.
How the tournament ended for both players
Both teams started well. Portugal beat Hungary 3-0 with two goals from Ronaldo, and France won their opener against Germany. Neither went all the way, though. Portugal, the defending champions, lost to Belgium in the round of 16, and France were knocked out in the same round by Switzerland, after a 3-3 draw and a penalty shoot-out in which Pogba had scored a superb long-range goal. Italy won the tournament, beating England on penalties at Wembley.
Ronaldo finished as joint top scorer with five goals, level with the Czech striker Patrik Schick. Pogba's later career took a harder turn: in 2024 he was banned after a positive test for testosterone, a ban later reduced to 18 months, before he returned to football with Monaco in 2025.
What the moments tell us about athletes and brands
Tournament sponsors pay large sums for their products to appear beside star players. The Euro 2020 episode was a reminder that the most famous athletes now have personal brands strong enough to push back, and audiences who will follow their lead.
For readers, there are two practical lessons. First, a viral gesture can make a strong point about health or belief without needing a dramatic financial story attached. Second, when a headline links a single moment to billions of dollars, check the timing and the context before sharing it. In this case, a routine dividend adjustment explained most of what happened.
Sources: Snopes: Did Ronaldo's Coca-Cola snub cost the company billions?; Logically Facts: Ronaldo and Coca-Cola's market value; NBC News: Beverage makers respond after Ronaldo and Pogba snub drinks; Wikipedia: UEFA Euro 2020; Wikipedia: Paul Pogba. Pogba's earlier comments on his faith were reported by the Daily Mail.
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