English Premier League football club Liverpool has signed a three-year extension to its main sponsor agreement with UK financial services company Standard Chartered Bank.
Standard Chartered originally signed up as the club’s main sponsor in July 2010, and the bank’s logo has now appeared on the front of Liverpool’s shirts for the last five seasons. Following a two-year extension of the partnership in 2013, the deal has now been furthered to take in the 2016-17 to 2018-19 seasons.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but the Liverpool Echo newspaper said the club was known to be seeking a deal starting at around the £30m (€41.6m/$44.8m) per year mark. Liverpool’s initial deal with Standard Chartered was worth up to £20m per season.
Over the last five years, Standard Chartered and Liverpool have used their partnership to support a number of the bank's award-winning sustainability and community investment programmes.
The annual ‘Perfect Match’ game – where Liverpool players swap the Standard Chartered logo on their shirts for the Seeing is Believing logo – has raised more than $340,000 to tackle avoidable blindness.
The sponsorship has also allowed the bank to leverage the club's social media presence to educate and share awareness on HIV/AIDS on successive World AIDS Days, supporting the bank’s Living with HIV programme.
The sponsorship has enabled the bank to connect with customers, clients and staff around the world, through initiatives such as the Liverpool legend-led football clinics which have reached more than 3,500 children across 16 of the bank's markets, and the Standard Chartered Trophy. This annual five-a-side football tournament provides teams from around the world with the opportunity to play at Liverpool’s Anfield home.
Only five companies – Hitachi, Crown, Candy, Carlsberg and Standard Chartered – have adorned Liverpool’s shirt in the 40 years since the club created the sponsorship opportunity.
Commenting on Liverpool’s sponsorship strategy, chief executive Ian Ayre said: “It's something that we've been very keen to maintain over many years, which is ensuring that we have a very strong relationship – what many people would describe as a win-win. We feel that our partners and sponsors should get at least as much out of this as we do. Having only had five (brands) on the shirt is testament to that and the fact that people want to stay and be a part of Liverpool Football Club’s family.”