Arsenal have ‘driven the price up’ as £10m+ deal agreed
Arsenal’s new shirt sleeve sponsor was in the pipeline after the club terminated their deal with Visit Rwanda.
That is according to football finance expert Dr Dan Plumley who has exclusively told Football Insider that Arsenal were prepared to step away from their partnership with Visit Rwanda.
Arsenal had faced criticism for promoting Visit Rwanda, in a deal worth £10million a year, with the club’s supporters protesting about the sponsorship.
Deel was then announced as a new Arsenal sponsor under a month after the Visit Rwanda deal was terminated.
Arsenal deal ‘was in the background’
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, Plumley believes Arsenal may have got more than £10m with their new sponsor.
“I would say so with the timing is spot on, isn’t it, in terms of having another deal lined up,” Plumley said.
“And look, they had already canvassed the opinion of the supporters’ trust, hadn’t they, around keeping that Rwanda deal. Given some of the other context around that politically, 90% of those respondents wanted that deal to end. So I guess it’s good timing all around for Arsenal in that regard.
“That Rwanda deal was worth about £10million a year, thereabouts. So, again, you would expect Arsenal to have probably drove up a little bit of a higher price with the deal. So it’d be interesting to see if we get those numbers.
“But, yeah, it seems that this was something that was in the background and lightly planned, because they knew they were going to step away from the Rwanda partnership.”
Arsenal halt Chelsea’s sponsorship plans
Arsenal were rumoured to have hijacked a potential Chelsea partnership with Deel, with the Blues still searching for a new front-of-shirt sponsor.
The Gunners though were said to have won a commercial race against their London rivals, and that Deel could not afford to sponsor Chelsea‘s front-of-shirt.
Chelsea are holding out for £60m to agree a new shirt sponsorship, and American company Oracle were also in the running to strike a deal.