Liverpool faces £1m court case over kit sponsors

LIVERPOOL FOOTBALL Club is being sued for more than £1m in commission the club is said to owe in relation to a £15m deal with a bookmaker to sponsor its training kit.

Sports sponsorship firm Winlink claims the current Premier League leaders owe £1.125m because one of its senior executives introduced club officials to their contacts at BetVictor in 2013.

Winlink says it was “heavily engaged over a number of years in securing a successful introduction... and in assisting to bring about a sponsorship deal”, which led to a £5m-ayear deal for three seasons between 2016/17 to 2018/19.

But Liverpool say their head of global partnership sales, Rafaella Valentino, “personally negotiated the deal with BetVictor’s CEO, her friend Andreas Meinrad”, shortly after she joined the club in late 2015, and that Winlink’s introduction was not the cause of the deal.

At a remote High Court trial yesterday, Winlink’s barrister Andrew Sutcliffe QC said Winlink “spent significant time and effort in building the relationship between Liverpool and BetVictor”.

He said Winlink and its sister company Bettor, which “specialise in identifying and introducing betting companies to sports rights holders”, had previously earned commissions for introducing bookmakers to numerous football clubs, including Arsenal, Chelsea, Inter Milan and Juventus.

The trial before Judge Mark Pelling QC is due to last five days and it is expected that the judge will reserve his judgment to a later date.