By David Gold
July 20 – Chelsea have inked a new sponsorship deal with Russian energy giant Gazprom which will see them supply gas and electricity to the club for the next three seasons.
Chelsea are the reigning Champions League holders, and the deal comes just a week after Gazprom signed a deal, also for three years, to become a partner of that competition.
The Premier League side are owned by one of Russia’s richest men, billionaire Roman Abramovich, who sold his stake in Sibneft to Gazprom in 2005.
“This is another very exciting global partnership for the club, and demonstrates the ever-growing appeal of Chelsea FC,” said the club’s chief executive Ron Gourlay.
“Our huge fan base around the world will help Gazprom reach their key markets in Europe and Asia, while we will benefit from their support in developing further our wide-ranging CSR programs.”
Chelsea have been busy commercially of late, also agreeing deals with Audi, Sauber F1 and Delta Air Lines.
The deal is also a significant step for Chelsea towards meeting the requirements of UEFA’s financial fair play (FFP) initiative.
That comes into force from the 2013-2014 season, with the previous two seasons’ accounts being analysed for the first year of FFP.
Clubs cannot lose more than €45 million (£38 million/$59 million) over the first two years of accounts analysed, and in time this figure will reduce to nil.
Chelsea’s last accounts showed a loss of £67.7 million (€80 million/$106 million).
Most of that was down to their spending on new signings, but Chelsea have continued in that fashion this summer by bringing in Eden Hazard, Marko Marin and are set to seal the signing of Brazilian ace Oscar (pictured above), probably again for a significant sum.
The deal with Gazprom mirrors in some ways the huge agreement Manchester City signed with Etihad last year, a company with whom the Premier League champions’ owners are closely linked to.
UEFA’s rulings are designed to prevent club owners effectively being able to sponsor their own teams through a proxy company, but both Chelsea and Manchester City are throwing down a challenge to European football’s governing body with their deals.
Particularly as one of the punishments to teams failing to meet the FFP rules is not being allowed into UEFA competition.
With Gazprom a partner of both Chelsea and UEFA, the prospect of that fate now seems significantly smaller for the Londoners.
Vitaly Vasiliev, chief executive officer of Gazprom Marketing and Trade, said: “The Gazprom group is delighted to be associated with such a well known and successful brand in international football.
“Gazprom supplies secure and clean natural gas to clients all over the world and this energy partnership with the European champions gives us an outstanding global platform to further raise our profile across our European and global markets.
“We very much look forward to working together over the coming three seasons.”
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