The Premier League has said that a possible new sponsor for Chelsea would break the rules. The Blues are looking for a new sponsor after their three-year deal
Premier League shirt sponsor block deal
The Premier League stopped Chelsea from making a big money deal with Paramount+ to become the club’s new main shirt sponsor.
The Blues are looking for a new logo to put on the front of their shirts for the 2023–2024 season and beyond. Their previous deal with Three, a mobile network, ended at the end of last season. Three had been on Chelsea shirts for three years, from 2020 to 2023.
Three stopped marketing for the club for a short time in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine, but they started back up again when Roman Abramovich sold the club last June.
Even though the company wanted their logo taken off of shirts, it never happened because Nike couldn’t make new ones under the special license.
Now, Chelsea need a new sponsor no matter what, and it seems like they were hoping it would be the American streaming service Paramount.
The Premier League has decided that a deal would go against the Deed of License, which is a set of rules about programming.
In the UK, Paramount+ is available to watch movies and TV shows. Importantly, though, Paramount+ is also a Premier League broadcast partner in the US, and a deal with Chelsea could be bad for the league, even though it doesn’t watch games in the UK.
Chelsea will have to think of other things to do. Allianz, a German financial business that is already very involved in football, has been mentioned as a possible partner.
However, reports from the past few days say that a deal with Allianz would be much less profitable for Chelsea than a partnership with Stake, an online betting platform.
As of April, Premier League clubs decided to ban betting companies from the front of shirts starting in 2026. This means that any sponsorship from Stake could only last for a short time. After that, gaming ads will only be allowed on the sleeve or on the pitch.
After polling its members, the Chelsea Supporters’ Trust said this week, “Over 77% of our voting members strongly disagree or disagree with the use of an online casino and betting company as the primary shirt sponsor.”
In a letter to Chelsea chairman Todd Boehly, the group made this known and talked about projects that the Chelsea Foundation is in charge of.
