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I guess Gadaffi's company does not want to tarnish its name by associating with a calciopoli club! 
Nice article tho...
The Old Lady And The Sponsor
The first ever company to sponsor an Italian football team was Sanson (an ice cream firm) back in 1978. As it was explicitly prohibited to put a brand’s name on the shirt, they placed their logo on Udinese shorts. In 1981 the football league changed its rules, allowing professional clubs to have names of pasta producer or hi-fi retailer on their shirts.
It was all about money, of course. But not as much money as it is nowadays, and when a major sponsor flies away, even top flight outfit could be in trouble. Just like Juventus. Goal.com’s Luca Manes takes a peek at sponsor power…
Juventus annus horribilis came to an end with yet another piece of bad news. This time it was its main sponsor, Tamoil, to betray a disenchanted Old Lady. Was that another backlash of Calciopoli? It looks like it may have been as maybe the Libyan oil company owned by Colonel Muammar Gadaffi family pondered and revised its massive investment.
In fact when the contract was signed in April 2005 it guaranteed Juventus 24 million Euros a year for a decade. That was an incredible amount of money, setting a world record. At the moment the more lucrative sponsorship are AIG (21 millions for Manchester United) and Siemens (20.8 for Real Madrid), while in Italy Milan gets "only" 10 million from betting shop Bwin.
Tamoil, due to Juventus’ new reduced commercial status, pulled out of the contract in the last days of 2006, after expressing their intention to end the relationship with bianconeri last September. Surely for Juventus it was a big blow. Chief executive Jean Paul Blanc didn’t manage to make the Libyans change their mind, even though President Gadaffi is one of Juve's major shareholders.
Now the Turin club will have to look somewhere else. According to Italian financial daily newspaper Il sole 24 Ore Sky could be a back up option, but surely not as much generous as Tamoil. But there are also some rumours hinting the new sponsor could be FIAT, a move that would rubbish all the whispers about Agnelli family stepping aside from Juventus.
Considering a definite scaling down of the contract with the official supplier Nike (originally stipulated for 190 million in a dozen years), and without the Libyan oil company support, it appears extremely difficult for the Old Lady to build a strong side for the Serie A challenge in order to keep Buffon and Trezeguet. The two top players are both likely to leave Turin in a near future, unless Juve can demonstrate to be able to revive past glories.
In the meantime there are other teams desperately looking for a sponsor on their shirt – and a fair amount of money in their bank accounts. The more renowned is Roma, possibly in talk with Ryanair and Apple but still without a corporate logo.
Actually in Serie A there is a wide range of sponsorship solutions. Take Messina for example, they sell their sponsorship rights a game at time. A company just has to pay 40.000 Euros for a single match appearance. A bunch of teams (Atalanta, Cagliari, Chievo, Empoli, Parma, Reggina and Torino) have got two sponsors on their shirts, a possibility contemplated by the League rules from 2004.
There is also quite a small club in Serie B that anticipated Barcelona and their Unicef connection. We are talking about Piacenza, a nice little club at the moment fighting for promotion to Serie A. They showed that, even in its modern era, football is not 100% about money but usually the bottom line means that we’ll probably soon be seeing another multinational firm’s logo on the Bianconeri jersey, FIAT or not…
Nice article tho...
The Old Lady And The Sponsor
The first ever company to sponsor an Italian football team was Sanson (an ice cream firm) back in 1978. As it was explicitly prohibited to put a brand’s name on the shirt, they placed their logo on Udinese shorts. In 1981 the football league changed its rules, allowing professional clubs to have names of pasta producer or hi-fi retailer on their shirts.
It was all about money, of course. But not as much money as it is nowadays, and when a major sponsor flies away, even top flight outfit could be in trouble. Just like Juventus. Goal.com’s Luca Manes takes a peek at sponsor power…
Juventus annus horribilis came to an end with yet another piece of bad news. This time it was its main sponsor, Tamoil, to betray a disenchanted Old Lady. Was that another backlash of Calciopoli? It looks like it may have been as maybe the Libyan oil company owned by Colonel Muammar Gadaffi family pondered and revised its massive investment.
In fact when the contract was signed in April 2005 it guaranteed Juventus 24 million Euros a year for a decade. That was an incredible amount of money, setting a world record. At the moment the more lucrative sponsorship are AIG (21 millions for Manchester United) and Siemens (20.8 for Real Madrid), while in Italy Milan gets "only" 10 million from betting shop Bwin.
Tamoil, due to Juventus’ new reduced commercial status, pulled out of the contract in the last days of 2006, after expressing their intention to end the relationship with bianconeri last September. Surely for Juventus it was a big blow. Chief executive Jean Paul Blanc didn’t manage to make the Libyans change their mind, even though President Gadaffi is one of Juve's major shareholders.
Now the Turin club will have to look somewhere else. According to Italian financial daily newspaper Il sole 24 Ore Sky could be a back up option, but surely not as much generous as Tamoil. But there are also some rumours hinting the new sponsor could be FIAT, a move that would rubbish all the whispers about Agnelli family stepping aside from Juventus.
Considering a definite scaling down of the contract with the official supplier Nike (originally stipulated for 190 million in a dozen years), and without the Libyan oil company support, it appears extremely difficult for the Old Lady to build a strong side for the Serie A challenge in order to keep Buffon and Trezeguet. The two top players are both likely to leave Turin in a near future, unless Juve can demonstrate to be able to revive past glories.
In the meantime there are other teams desperately looking for a sponsor on their shirt – and a fair amount of money in their bank accounts. The more renowned is Roma, possibly in talk with Ryanair and Apple but still without a corporate logo.
Actually in Serie A there is a wide range of sponsorship solutions. Take Messina for example, they sell their sponsorship rights a game at time. A company just has to pay 40.000 Euros for a single match appearance. A bunch of teams (Atalanta, Cagliari, Chievo, Empoli, Parma, Reggina and Torino) have got two sponsors on their shirts, a possibility contemplated by the League rules from 2004.
There is also quite a small club in Serie B that anticipated Barcelona and their Unicef connection. We are talking about Piacenza, a nice little club at the moment fighting for promotion to Serie A. They showed that, even in its modern era, football is not 100% about money but usually the bottom line means that we’ll probably soon be seeing another multinational firm’s logo on the Bianconeri jersey, FIAT or not…
