By Andrew Warshaw
July 13 – Barclays may be embroiled in an unprecedented rate-fixing scandal that has plunged its global reputation into disarray but that has done little to affect its involvement in football with the announcement that the banking giant has extended its sponsorship of the English Premier League until 2016 in a three-year deal worth £40 million ($62 million/€51 million) a season from 2013.
The current partnership, which expires at the end of the 2012-2013 season, has seen Barclays pay out £27.5 million ($42.5 million/€34.8 million) a year, another illustration of the huge popularity of Premier League football especially after Manchester City’s (pictured above) nail-biting title win last May.
Barclays were fined $435 million (£282 million/€356 million) last week by United States and United Kingdom regulators for making false reports of its borrowing costs from 2005 to 2009.
But the new football deal, a massive rise on the previous one, gives Barclays global title sponsorship of the Premier League and provides exclusive worldwide marketing rights for the bank, plus extensive advertising rights, tickets and hospitality.
The Premier League, which reaches 212 territories and over 650 million homes with a cumulative global audience of 4.7 billion, resumes on August 18.
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