By David Owen
January 15 – The wave of Chinese investment in world football has reached Europe’s premier national team competition. Hisense, a white goods and electronics company based in the east-coast city of Qingdao has been unveiled as the 10th global partner of Euro 2016, to be played for the first time as a 24-team tournament in France in June and July.
Hisense joins familiar international brands such as Adidas, Hyundai-Kia, McDonald’s and Orange in sponsoring the competition. The deal comes about a month after an arm of Chinese internet group Alibaba agreed an eight-year sponsorship deal for beleaguered world governing body FIFA’s Club World Cup.
Guy-Laurent Epstein, marketing director of UEFA Events, said the body was “excited” to welcome Hisense, which he described as “one of the fastest-growing Chinese brands in Europe and America”.
He said the tournament would offer the company “a platform second-to-none to continue their international growth.
“We look forward to working closely together with them in a mutually beneficial partnership that will also further promote the best of European football to millions of fans in China.”
Cheng Kaixun, Hisense vice-president, predicted that the partnership with UEFA would “further boost” the brand value of the company, which he said had been “leading Chinese companies in endorsing sports around the world”. Sports marketing, he added, had been “an important driver for our worldwide success in the past years”.
The group’s name has been bestowed notably on the Hisense Arena, a A$65 million multi-sports venue in Melbourne, Australia.
Under the new deal, the Chinese group will also sponsor other UEFA national team competitions until the end of next year. These include European qualifiers for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, UEFA Futsal Euro 2016, the 2017 UEFA European Under-21 Championship and UEFA Women’s Euro 2017.
The full list of global sponsors for Euro 2016 is as follows: Adidas, Carlsberg, Coca-Cola, Continental, Hisense, Hyundai-Kia, McDonald’s, Orange, SOCAR and Turkish Airlines. The new deal is the first sponsorship agreement with a Chinese entity in the 56-year history of the European Championships.
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