South Africa, Oct. 27 -- The sponsorship agreement, which dates back to the 1994 Fifa World Cup, expires at the end of this year.

While the World Cup campaign "provided a lift to the business and generated excellent system excitement, it underperformed versus our expectations," said McDonald's chief financial officer Ian Borden.

He also said that McDonald's has to be "really careful about how many borrowed equities" it puts on the calendar.

"In many cases, a borrowed equity would be whether you're doing something with World Cup or you're doing something with Minecraft or Grinch. There's certainly a role for those, you're not going to promo your way to long-term value creation," he said.

He adds, "You're always going to be having to co...