By Mark Baber
October 22 – Comments by Michael Bolingbroke, CEO of Inter, on the future relationship of the club with Pirelli have ignited speculation as to whether the 20 year partnership may be possibly be coming to an end.
Bolingbroke is quoted as having said talks are underway about renewing the link, which will expire in 2016, but “I will only say that this June we will celebrate 20 years with Pirelli as a partner.”
Bolingbroke told reporters that as far as he knew the Inter Pirelli partnership was “the longest partnership in world football, with only Liverpool Carlsberg approaching (it).” .
“It seems absurd for us to imagine a world without Pirelli but all comes to an end and it could happen in two years,” he said.
“We are currently negotiating with them in order to understand what to do. In a commercial partnership both parties must take advantage.
“We are not talking about money but rather advantages that we could bring to Pirelli through our project.”
Bolingbroke also said that Inter will keep following Financial Fair Play rules in the near future.
“We favour FFP because we believe that it will make European football stronger. As a club we are developing a five-year plan within the FFP limits.”
Whether Pirelli and Inter are really likely to part ways is impossible to judge, but what we can say is that their relationship is certainly not the longest in football.
A number of clubs were founded as works clubs of course, with a notable example being Bayer Leverkusen which was set up by the Bayer chemical concern in 1904, notwithstanding the fact it has had RWE on the shirt since 2000. Other examples would be Carl Zeiss Jena and PSV Eindhoven (the P standing for Philips) and VFL Wolfsburg and Volkswagen.
Even if we look at currently subsisting club-company partnerships which aren’t directly connected via ownership, Pirelli and Inter’s relationship is not the longest lived. That honour may go to RSC Anderlecht and BNP Paribas who have been together since 1981 and whose relationship was extended to 2016-17 in March of this year.
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