How to obstruct Search Engines contact to Site Footer?

I’m using a WP theme which contains some links to its sponsors in the footer, which I’m not hypothetical to remove or modify (nofollow). So what I aim to do is prohibit and limit the search engines from accessing that part of the site, which would otherwise penalize and punish me on those arbitrary links. But I don’t know how accurately to do it; can somebody here show me the way to do it? Or have you any ideas to handle this better? Can anybody help me to create a useful plan for this matter?

See original post by vendarjonshan