“THE REGGAE BOYZ”, Jamaica’s national football team, will be sponsored by Italian kit manufacturer Kappa in a new deal with the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) worth around $2m over three years ($666,000 per year).
The deal value was reported in the Jamaica Observer newspaper, which stated that the previous two-year deal with Kappa from 2008 to 2010 – the most lucrative in the JFF’s history – was valued at $1.7m ($850,000 per year).
According to the same source, $350,000 has been earmarked under the new deal as a bonus should the team qualify for the FIFA World Cup Finals in Brazil in 2014.
The agreement, which took nearly a year of negotiations, was finalised by Kappa's group sports sponsorship manager Paulo Fulgenzi.
Fulgenzi said: "It took us one year to make a decision, not because we were not interested, but more because this project is so important to the president [Kappa president Marco Boglione] who is very hands-on when it comes to the Jamaica project, so we had to take our time in working out the detail.”
The JFF had previously held discussions with Brazilian sports manufacturer Penalty and had received interest from other sporting goods manufacturers in Brazil, including Olimpicus.
By Matthew Glendinning
matthewg@sportbusiness.com