Manchester City clearly got a fabulous deal by agreeing to re-up their sponsorship with Etihad Airlines (amusing translations aside). In addition to the renaming of their home ground to Etihad Stadium in a deal believed to be worth £15M a year until 2022, City have also extended the rest of their sponsorship agreements with the Airlines, making the package worth a grand total of something approaching £400M over the next ten years - the largest such agreement in the history of the sport.
UEFA To Examine Manchester City’s Etihad Airlines Deal
In fact, it's so rich that many are wondering whether there's a bit of funny business involved. Etihad Airways are very closely associated with City owner Sheik Mansour and the Abi Dubai United Group, and there's some suspicion that the company could have cut the club a very team-friendly team, which would be a violation of UEFA's Financial Fair Play initiative. UEFA, wary of anyone exploiting loopholes in their rules, are going to cast a very close eye over the terms of the deal, especially in light of Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur finding themselves unable to secure anything like £400M worth of value from sponsorships.
It’ll be very interesting to see what comes of this - if City are trying to mess around with UEFA before they establish themselves as one of Europe’s big clubs, they could well find themselves in deep, deep trouble.
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