THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LONDON — Liverpool announced its biggest ever sponsorship deal Monday, providing a cash injection that will speed up the building of a new stadium, according to managing director Cristian Purslow.
Standard Chartered bank will be paying 84 million pounds (C$150.9 million) over four years from July 2010 to appear on Liverpool shirts.
The British bank is replacing Danish beer brand Carlsberg, which has sponsored the 18-time English champions since 1991 but had only been paying about seven million pounds (C$12.5 million) annually in recent years.
Purslow had warned last week that the 60,000-seat replacement for Liverpool’s crumbling Anfield stadium would not be built until the global recession was over. The stadium was due to have opened next year, but building work was halted last August due to the lack of credit available.
"The overall financial health of our football club is a key ingredient of being able to get the stadium project back up and running," Purslow said Monday. "This (new sponsorship deal) is a huge step forward for the club financially and that can only be helpful to create the conditions in which we can restart the stadium project."
.Liverpool has been financially hamstrung by the economics of the 45,000-capacity Anfield, where there are only 34 luxury suites and few amenities to generate extra funding.
Since buying Liverpool in 2007, American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr. had been surprised by the club’s inability to exploit its global status by generating money through commercial deals.
Liverpool is British football’s most successful club, having won the English championship 18 times and the European Cup five times.
"It is a real sign of the progress we have made at Liverpool that we have been able to secure the largest ever commercial deal in our history," Purslow said. "The sponsorship opportunity attracted a huge level of interest from a wide array of globally recognized brands and in Standard Chartered we believe we have the ideal partner to move forward and help develop our global ambitions for the club."
Standard Chartered, which is listed on both the London and Hong Kong stock exchanges, had been trying to sponsor Manchester United before the Premier League champions completed a deal in June with Chicago-based insurance broker Aon Corp.
Standard Chartered has 14 million customers across Asia, the Middle East and Africa. In Britain, Standard Chartered announced last month that its first-half profit rose 5.5 per cent to $1.88 billion.
"This sponsorship will drive a step change in brand recognition in our key markets and will provide an additional catalyst for our business growth," said Peter Sands, the bank’s group chief executive.