The biggest news in football circles over the last few days was the announcement of Manchester United’s new kit deal with German sportswear giants, Adidas. At a staggering $1.2 billion, the kit deal stands alone as the biggest sports licensing deal of all time. With sports and financial analysts falling over themselves to pick the deal apart to better understand the sheer amount of dollars being discussed, one of Ghana’s leading football teams, Asante Kotoko is reportedly close to snagging a kit deal of its own away from all the spotlight.
Far from being as lavish as Manchester United’s huge deal as it may be, Asante Kotoko’s deal highlights the dearth of financially beneficial kit deals on the African football scene but it also raises the hope that this might be the beginning of a trend that could well unlock a huge source of revenue generation for clubs in Africa.
Reports from GhanaSoccernet suggests that Asante Kotoko have an offer from Singaporean manufacturing company Kubba for a kit sponsorship deal valued at $340,000 annually.
With the club confirming that a preliminary meeting has taken place to preview demo designs and their quality from Kubba, it appears there could be a signed contract over the next few weeks as the club expressed satisfaction with the quality of the demo designs with Operations Manager of the club, George Kennedy hinting that the quality of the designs were ‘attractive’.
A clause in the proposed contract from Kubba requires Asante Kotoko to procure 20,000 replica shirts from Kubba to sell to its various fans but the club have indicated that the first shipment of purchased replica jerseys should be only 5,000. This arrangement is not peculiar as a percentage of profits made on sales of replica jerseys usually go to the kit sponsors. However, there are a number of variations with this arrangement as, for instance, Adidas will reportedly keep the full amount on sales of Manchester United’s kit deal over the duration of its ten year deal barring a review of current terms.
Asante Kotoko are currently without a kit sponsor and are expected to announce the deal with Kubba in the coming weeks ahead of the new Ghanaian Premier League season. The Ghanaian Premier League is sponsored by First Capital Plus Bank who inked a five year deal worth $10 million earlier this year. Asante Kotoko are the reigning champions of the competition and have also won a record 24 championship titles.
Source: Ventures Africa
