FA CUP SELL-OUT
Blow to tradition as FA net £30m Emirates sponsor deal
THE FA Cup, the oldest knockout football competition in the world, is set to be rebranded as the Emirates FA Cup in a new £30million sponsorship deal.
In a move that will upset traditionalists, the FA are understood to have secured a three-year contract with Emirates Airlines.
The deal, due to be rubber-stamped by the FA board tomorrow, is believed to be worth at least £10million a year — but comes at a cost for lovers of the 144-year-old competition.
Renaming it the Emirates FA Cup is a lot closer to title sponsorship than the previous ‘in association with Budweiser’ agreement, which was worth £9m annually.
But the FA, after a highly embarrassing season without any Cup backer that has put huge pressure on their commercial department, needed to offer more to attract a significant sponsor to the table.
The hunt proved hugely difficult even after the FA revamped their sponsorship team to bring in expertise honed at Manchester United. And it needed a bit of luck to attract Emirates Airlines, who have a
From Back Page massive sports sponsorship portfolio across the world that includes Arsenal’s stadium and kit.
Emirates have big money to spend after deciding last November not to renew their £30m-a-year FIFA sponsorship for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. The allegations of corruption surrounding those tournaments are said to have been a consideration.
And Emirates are no longer involved, either, in the tender for a Champions League airline backer, allowing the FA to offer a major football sponsorship alternative.
Dubai-based Emirates have their arch Abu Dhabi airline rivals Etihad as Manchester City’s kit and stadium sponsors. But City foresee no problems with an Emirates FA Cup.
The deal with Emirates will also allow for a further six subsidiary sponsors for the competition — with Budweiser, Nike and William Hill already signed up. And the ambition is for the whole FA Cup sponsorship portfolio to be worth £20m by 2018.
The Emirates deal, likely to be officially announced nearer to the FA Cup final on May 30, is also well-timed for the FA’s commercial department, with the new chief executive Martin Glenn arriving at Wembley next month.
for the all-French European Rugby Champions Cup final between Toulon and Clermont Auvergne at Twickenham on Saturday are selling so poorly that England Rugby Supporters Club members have been offered the chance to buy two seats for the price of one. SAM ALLARDYCE’S future as manager of West Ham is subject to much speculation at a time when an extraordinary letter sent by lawyers acting for Blackburn Rovers owners Venky’s to football agency Kentaro’s legal representatives is still doing the rounds.
The letter, from December 22, 2011, makes numerous disputed claims about Kentaro’s involvement in Blackburn after Venky’s bought the club the previous year. Among other things, it alleges that it was Kentaro who persuaded the new Indian owners to sack Allardyce (above) and replace him with Steve Kean, a client of Kentaro’s agency partners SEM.
Kentaro are now in administration in the UK. But SEM say it was entirely Venky’s decision to dispense with Allardyce as they wanted ‘good entertaining football’, and that Kean negotiated his own contract to become caretaker manager.
has emerged that the final flashpoint in the breakdown of relations between the RFU hierarchy and Debbie Jevans, who quit as CEO of England Rugby 2015, was over a Twickenham hospitality box for the World Cup. Jevans wanted control over the guest list, while the RFU didn’t want it full of her friends and contacts. It is not clear if ER2015 will have such a facility during the tournament. Their spokeswoman refused to comment. ER2015 insist Jevans’s exit will not affect the smooth running of the World Cup. Yet the Northampton v Saracens game in Milton Keynes last Saturday, run as a test event for the tournament, has presented the organisers with significant traffic issues to resolve.