ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE Champions Manchester City could be open to offers from brands to replace Etihad Airways as the club’s main shirt sponsor, Sports Marketing Frontiers has learned.
Etihad is currently two years into a multi-property, 10-year deal with Manchester City, which includes the naming right to the Etihad Stadium and the Etihad Campus.
Industry experts told Frontiers that City might accept an offer in the region of £20 million per year for the shirt sponsorship so as to scale down the size of the Etihad deal, which has been the subject of scrutiny by UEFA’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) authorities.
Manchester City’s 10-year deal with Etihad is reportedly worth £400m, but details of how the sponsorship money is split per property have never been released.
Under the FFP rules, UEFA are aware that owners of clubs could look to inflate a club’s profitability by injecting funds into clubs via artificially inflated commercial deals.
For this reason, UEFA FFP rules require any transaction from a ‘related party’, such as a sponsor which shares a common financial interest with the club ownership, to be assessed to ensure it is a genuine transaction at a ‘fair value’.
UEFA has the power to adjust any "artificial deals" and apply a lower valuation.
Earlier this month UEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino said that the continent's clubs had started to heed the governing body's firm advice with respect to financial fair play measures and their implication for European club football.
Frontiers contacted the club this morning, but a club representative declined to comment.
By Matthew Glendinning
Follow Matthew on Twitter: @mattglen