Chelsea hit hurdle over ‘£30m’ deal after Man City news – Stefan Borson
Chelsea could face issues receiving Premier League approval over a front-of-shirt sponsorship deal with an associated party following the ruling in the Manchester City case.
That is the view of former Man City financial adviser Stefan Borson, who exclusively told Football Insider nobody currently knows what regime is in place to assess a deal of that nature.
Man City took legal action against the Premier League regarding the associated party transaction (APT) rules at an arbitration hearing in June.
Both sides have claimed a victory in the case after the arbitration panel’s decision was published on 7 October, where two aspects of the rules were deemed to be unlawful.
The Premier League postponed a meeting of the 20 top-flight clubs last week, but they are now gathering on Tuesday (22 October) to decide how to respond to the ruling.
It comes at a time when Chelsea are still on the lookout for a new front-of-shirt deal after starting the season without a primary sponsor for the second consecutive campaign following the expiration of their agreement with Infinite Athlete.
Chelsea sponsorship deal continuing to lose value
But Borson insisted it’s currently unclear what would happen if the London giants were to agree a deal worth up to £40million with an associated party.
He told Football Insider: “There is a real grey area right now as to what happens over sponsorship deals.
“Let’s say the point of discussion is Chelsea, there has been a lot of talk about their front-of-shirt sponsorship.
“If Chelsea get an approach tomorrow from an associated party for their front of shirt, now that deal is clearly big and could be worth £30-40million.
“The clock is ticking on it. We are already in mid-October, they don’t have a lot of time to process that deal. Every month that goes by, clearly it becomes a lot less valuable as a sponsorship deal because there are less games and the season is part way through.
“So what happens? What regime assesses that deal? We don’t know. Nobody knows.
“I can understand them not just deleting the sections of the rulebook because they are saying we don’t know what goes in the place of those sections we are going to delete.
“Okay fine, but there is a big question mark over what the rules actually are right now in terms of commercial transactions and what happens if a club puts forward a new sponsorship.
“Do they have to put forward a new sponsorship right now?
“On City’s reading of the rules, those rules don’t exist. They are null and void, and they always have been. But nobody knows.
“It’s not a good situation to have this uncertainty midway through a season, especially when you are talking about transactions where time is of the essence with commercial deals.”
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