Italian Serie A football club Bologna has agreed a sponsorship deal with Italian dairy company Granarolo.
The company has become a top-tier partner of the first team and an official partner of the club’s youth operations.
The deal will run until the end of the 2016-17 season, with an option to renew for further seasons. Granarolo had been an official sponsor of the club for four seasons, from 1997-98 to 2000-2001.
Granarolo will have LED board visibility and hospitality packages for home games of the first team at the Renato Dall’Ara Stadium. Its products and logo will be represented in the newly-created family zones within the stadium. The club will work with the company on other activations targeted at families.
Granarolo’s logo will also appear on the sleeve of the junior teams with the exception of the U-21 team, for whom sleeve patches are sold centrally by the football league, Lega Serie A.
Bologna is owned by Italo-Canadian businessman Joey Saputo, whose Saputo Dairy Products is the biggest dairy company in Canada and one of the biggest in North America. Granarolo president Gianpiero Calzolari, said that the two companies were not direct competitors as they focused on different markets, with most of Granarolo’s business being in Europe and most of Saputo’s in North America. He said that there were no plans for a strategic alliance between the two companies to target new markets.
Saputo also owns Major League Soccer team Montreal Impact.