Infinite Athlete to be Chelsea’s new front-of-shirt sponsor
By Isha Mohan
After waiting for a while and having the team play their pre-season games without a sponsor on their shirt, Chelsea seems to have finally found a main sponsor ahead of the new season.
Chelsea are set to announce their new sponsor
With Three (a network company and Chelsea’s former main sponsor) expressing their desire to end their relationship with Chelsea, first during the sanction days and then earlier this year, the club, under the ownership of Todd Boehly, began searching for a new main sponsor for their kits.
Previous contenders
Boehly’s influence led the club to consider a connection with Paramount. However, the Premier League quickly put a stop to this to avoid causing trouble with the current broadcasters, especially NBC in the United States, which directly competes with Paramount. This decision also aimed to maintain good relations with UK-based broadcasters like Amazon, BT Sport, and Sky Sports.
Additionally, there were links between the club and Allianz, as well as a cryptocurrency site that eventually folded. Subsequently, Chelsea were associated with the betting company Stake.com, which also happens to be a main sponsor for both Everton and Watford. The potential agreement with Stake.com was almost finalized, given its short-term nature—a one-year contract valued at 40 million.
However, this idea was also rejected because of strong fan disapproval, backed by Chelsea’s Supporter’s Trust. They argued that moving forward with the deal would be hypocritical, considering the club’s efforts to educate schools about the negative impacts of gambling through workshops.
This delay has also impacted the kit reveal and the sales launch of the new shirt, which is now postponed to Aug. 16, shortly after the start of the new season.
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New sponsor: Infinite Athlete
It wasn’t certain whether the sponsors would be confirmed by that time, but according to recent reports by Nathan Gissing, it appears that Infinite Athlete has agreed to pay 50 million for the ‘front of shirt’ sponsorship. Although the club has not yet formally announced the agreement, hints have been dropped by various journalists on Twitter.