By Paul Nicholson
January 28 – Just as Arsenal were announcing a record new £150 million kit deal with Puma, Liverpool, one of their rivals for the Premier League title, were announcing airline Garuda Indonesia as their first Official Training Kit Partner.
The sponsorship officially begins 1 June 2014 for two seasons. Garuda have been the Club’s Official Airline Partner since 2012 and was a partner for Liverpool FC’s 2013 preseason tour to Asia.
Liverpool has more than over 1.5 million Indonesian followers on its Facebook site and Indonesia has the biggest following of any of the club’s local-language Twitter accounts with over 90,000 followers.
“Last year we flew Liverpool FC to their tour destinations. We saw first-hand the following that this club has, not only in Indonesia but in Thailand and Australia too. We knew then that this football club would be the perfect partner for Garuda Indonesia as we grow our airline across the world” said Emirsyah Satar, President & CEO, Garuda Indonesia.
“As a global player and the flag carrier of Indonesia, Garuda Indonesia is committed to bring the beauty of Indonesia and its richness culture to the world. With co-branding partnership with LFC, we are confident Indonesia will be increasingly recognized by the world, especially by Liverpool fans worldwide”, added Mr. Satar.
Liverpool last week added Vauxhall Motors as its Official Automotive Partner in the UK. The deal will run through to the end of the 2015-16 season and starts at home to Arsenal on February 8.
No figures have been announced for either deal.
Training kit deals are fairly new sponsorship categories for clubs. Manchester United announced last April their shirt sponsor Aon, would be swapped match day sponsorship for training kit and the naming rights to the Carrington training ground in an estimated £120m ($183.6m), 8 year deal.
As part of the deal the Carrington trainingground will be renamed the Aon TrainingComplex and the company logo will appear onUnited’s training kit.
Aon are in the final season of a four-year £80m ($122.7m) shirt sponsorship. Aon will be replaced by Chevrolet for the 2014/15 season in a deal that will see the car maker pay £365m ($559m) over seven seasons.
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