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As the club has watched the Manchesters, Chelseas, and Bayerns of the footballing world spent tens of millions on players without breaking a sweat, it's certainly become clear that they need to find ways to supplement the club's income. Sometimes that can be tricky, as finding high-end revenue streams that the club isn't already tapping is starting to become a difficult thing to do. Yesterday, though, they managed to do just that, signing a deal with airline Garuda Indonesia to sponsor the club's training kits.
The deal, worth a reported £32 million over two years, follows in the wake of Manchester United's deal with Aon for their training shirts (and previously with DHL) in what's likely to become a growing trend for clubs looking to bring in extra money every year. The short run of the deal is a little bizarre (Manchester, in contrast, has an eight-year arrangement with Aon), but an extra £16 million pounds a year is nothing to sneeze at and is a nice lining of the coffers while it's around. It's possible that the relatively short term means the deal is a "trial" of sorts, giving both the club and sponsor a chance to see how well it works before committing to more years and/or money in the future.
Another deal widely being reported as new actually isn't. Car company Vauxhall is the club's "new" automotive sponsor, taking the place of Chevrolet. The catch, however, is that both companies are owned by General Motors, who recently withdrew Chevrolet from their European marketing efforts. As GM and Liverpool still had a deal in place, they elected to change the branding to a more local property, and thus we have Vauxhall.
In other news, Ian Ayre was asked to update the media on the Anfield redevelopment project when he announced the Garuda deal, and he had this to say:
"There are two or three hurdles we have to get over. The first is property, and we are making strides on that front. The second step is getting planning permission, and the third is construction.
"If we get over each of those hurdles, we have the certainty to move things forward. What we don’t want to do is start promising things we can’t deliver, but we’re very pleased with the progress we’re making."
In other words... not much has changed since the last update in October. If nothing else, at least some crucial part of the deal hasn't fallen apart, but it'd be nice to see some actual movement so that fans have a shiny, updated, and bigger stadium to enjoy before, say, the end of the decade.
