Football

Lottery and betting provider Synot has agreed a four-year deal to become the new title sponsor of the Czech Liga, the top division of football in the country.

Telecom Namibia has partnered with the Confederation of African Football to become the headline sponsor of the 2014 African Women’s Championship, in a deal worth N$6m (€422,500/$580,000).

South African football club Bloemfontein Celtic has agreed new sponsorship deals with Italian sportswear brand Kappa and Swazi funeral services company B3 Funerals and Insurance.

General Motors-owned car brand Chevrolet will pay around R21m (€6.9m/$9.5m) per year for the title sponsorship rights to Brazilian football’s first and second division leagues, for five years, from 2014 to 2018, in a deal agreed in April.

Spanish Liga football club Levante has secured a two-year deal, from 2014-15 to 2015-16, with US sportswear giant Nike.

Financial services company UniCredit is in talks to renew its partnership with the Uefa Champions League for the 2015-16 to 2017-18 cycle, after a strong return on investment from its current deal.

German Bundesliga football champion Bayern Munich has announced a three-year deal making fashion giant Giorgio Armani its new partner in the fashion and luxury clothing category.

Spanish Liga football club Valencia has agreed a long-term partnership with sportswear company Adidas.

Clubs in the 2013-14 Uefa Champions League, Europe’s premier continental football competition, generated around €640m ($878m) from shirt sponsorships and kit supplier deals during the season.

Polish Ekstraklasa football club Lech Poznan will wear Nike kits from next season after making the US sportswear giant its new technical sponsor.

Active engagement with its products in order to create authenticity and improve the brand’s reputation in sport is the key driver behind nutrition company Herbalife’s sponsorship programme, Brian McKinley, senior director of corporate alliances at Herbalife, told Sports Sponsorship Insider.

Sasol, the South Africa-based petro-chemical group, is looking for a marketing platform which can be tailored to it its various business-to-business strands in 37 countries,. But its head of sponsorship believes that a sporting property may not necessarily present the right model for the many and various markets it does business in.

Chinese telecommunications company Huawei has agreed deals to become an official partner of Dutch football club Ajax and a business partner of the Eredivisie champion’s Amsterdam ArenA.

Dutch-headquartered electronics giant Philips has reached an agreement with Bayern Munich to become the official lighting partner of the German Bundesliga football club and its Allianz Arena stadium.

German Bundesliga football team FC Köln has agreed a four-year extension to its stadium naming rights deal with energy company RheinEnergie.

French state-controlled betting operator PMU has sealed a four-year extension to its sponsorship of Ligue 1 football champion Paris Saint-Germain.